Nicole Heigl and Benedikt Meyer completed the past Corona school year at the Weilheim grammar school with a dream grade of 1.0.
However, the two 18-year-olds have no time for long breaks - they continue almost seamlessly in order to achieve their dream job.
Weilheim - When she started high school, i.e. at the beginning of the 11th grade, Nicole Heigl would not have believed that one and a half years later she would hold a high school diploma with the best of all grades in her hand. “I was good at school, but in the two years of upper school you have to be consistently good,” she says. Because for the Abitur grade, it's not just the exams that count, but every single job in the two years. But she obviously succeeded in doing that. “It actually went better than expected,” she says.
Benedikt Meyer confirms this. “You really have to be good in every subject.” And that is not so easy when in subjects such as geography or history, which used to be tackled with a few oral grades and one or the other ex , suddenly large exams lurk like in the main subjects.
"You have to develop a system when you have to work where," says Meyer.
And Heigl adds: "You have to develop ambition in the right place."
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Meyer also made it through the upper school - as did another 1.0 student who was unfortunately not available for an interview - with flying colors.
"But I was actually surprised when the grades were announced." With a total of 879 out of 900 possible points, he was even a tad better than Heigl (856), which gave her an astonished "You probably want me to ..." let go.
The corona situation has hardly affected them
The ubiquitous coronavirus didn't really affect the two top high school graduates because they were used to it from the previous year. In addition, there were alternating lessons for high school graduates from February, for which other classes had to wait until mid-May in some cases. The daily change had its pitfalls: “Sometimes the teachers didn't even know which material they had already gone through with which group,” recalls Heigl with a laugh. For Meyer it is clear: "Those who can work in a structured manner have an advantage in this type of teaching."
Curious: Both Heigl and Meyer had almost the same high school diploma: In addition to math and German, music was the third subject, plus oral English and religion and ethics.
They had a lot of fun with music - Meyer took the practical exam with percussion, Heigl on the piano.
“I was most afraid of English,” admits Meyer, and Heigl also had the most respect for it.
"Because I only learned for a short time because it was the last exam subject after the Whitsun holidays and I honestly didn't feel like it anymore." Meyer was not able to assess himself well after the German exam, but had a top grade there as well as Heigl who thought music wasn't going so well - "and then it was even my best school-leaving exam".
Both will study
Both have specific plans for the future.
Heigl wants to study aerospace engineering at the Technical University of Munich, a new course that was previously only possible in connection with mechanical engineering.
"That just fascinates me, I want to do something interesting," she says of her decision - even though she has never been on an airplane herself.
The premiere took place last week when we went on vacation to Rhodes with schoolmates.
Meyer wants to study medicine, either in Tübingen or Munich.
“That has actually been certain for years, and my goal is to become a pediatrician.” He actually needs his super degree to study medicine because, depending on the number of applicants, sometimes “bad” 1.0 high school graduates do not get a place straight away as he found out.
Meyer also goes on vacation with friends to Croatia, but then it starts right away: Meyer is doing an internship in the hospital before starting his studies in October, Heigl also has an eight-week pre-internship in his sights - they don't allow themselves any time off.
Before that, after the many failed events during the Corona year, they are still looking forward to the graduation ceremony on July 16: "This should now even take place with all graduates," says Heigl.
