I'm working on a profile for my mage, and figured this may be a good time to get feedback regarding the process of becoming one. So my question is, from the First War on (and perhaps a little before), what would be a human's options to initiate into magic, and would it require a school or teacher specifically or could one discover magic by accident?
It could be anything, really. Human, gnome, high elf. A human would be the most likely, with High elf in second. You'd probably either go to Lordaeron, Stormwind, or Dalaran, depending on your age.
Well, logically you could have trained anywhere from a tent in Stranglethorn to Silvermoon itself. And I think most mages are found by other mages that can spot their aptitude but of course they can find out themselves the classical "Charmed" way.
But the feeling I got from WC3 is that all human mages at one time or another pass Dalaran and are a part of the Mage's Guild/Sorcercers and so on.