Student gets extra year of school - in Germany

Brigitte Baake is going back to high school this fall.

Last month, Baake graduated with a full International Baccalaureate diploma from Flathead High School.

On Thursday, the 17-year-old leaves Kalispell for another year of high school, this time in Germany.

Baake was one of 250 American students chosen for the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange. (Bundestag is Germany’s parliament — the German equivalent of the U.S. Congress.)

The program places high-school students with host families for a year of schooling in Germany.

Although she will be going back to high school, Baake said she doesn’t consider the upcoming year in the same category as the last four years.

“It’s this whole new experience between my senior year and college,” she said.

Baake first found out about the exchange program when her older sister, Margit, was selected in 2004.

“That’s kind of what inspired me to do it,” Baake said.

She wants more than to follow in her sister’s footsteps, however. Baake hopes a year of high school in Germany will set her up for admission to a German college.

“It’s less expensive and a better education — no offense,” she said of college in Germany. “And I want to go into international relations; [going to school in Germany] will make it easier.”

Baake began the process of applying for the exchange program last fall.

She submitted her application in December and in February drove to Billings for an interview. Nineteen other applicants were there, Baake said, and she left certain she had just made the drive to Billings for nothing.

In the meantime, she applied to — and was accepted by — seven different colleges. In early April, Baake was ready to go to Whitworth College in Spokane.

But on April 14, Baake found out she was going to Germany.

“I couldn’t believe it when they called me and told me I was one of 250 students in the nation” who’d been accepted, she said.

On Thursday Baake will board the Amtrak train for Washington, D.C., where she’ll spend four days with other students bound for Germany.

In a sense, Baake already has met them; they’ve been keeping in touch on Facebook and other online groups for the last few months.

From Washington, the students will fly to Frankfurt, where they will disperse into three-week language camps throughout Germany.

Knowing German isn’t a prerequisite for acceptance into the program. But Baake already has an advantage over many of the students she’ll be studying with: German is her first language.

Baake’s father, Fritz Baake, is German. Her mother, Ina Dooren, is Dutch. The family has lived in Kalispell since 2006; they lived in Helena for four years before that.

They speak German at home, Baake said. She didn’t learn English until kindergarten.

“Most of the time I think in German, except when I’m speaking in English,” she said. “I think in German for math.”

Despite already knowing the language, Baake said she will benefit from language camp. The German she speaks is informal; she’ll need to learn the formal mode to address her teachers.

Language camp also will help her guard against culture shock. Students in the program have been told to expect a certain amount of shock, even though Germany is fairly Westernized.

Baake may be better situated than others when it comes to dealing with the shock, thanks to her German father and a monthlong German vacation last summer — “the best month of my life by far,” she called it.

The chance to further explore her heritage is one thing that appealed to Baake about the program.

“I grew up in a German household, but I’ve never been surrounded by German culture,” she said.

Eager as she is for the experience, Baake admitted to some nerves.

She will be the new kid in school this fall and is worried about making friends.

She’s anxious, too, about meeting the people she’s going to live with for most of the next year.

“My host family seems really nice, but there’s only so much that e-mail and Skype can tell you,” she said.

Her host family, complete with parents and sisters ages 10, 12 and 14, live in Bremen, where Baake will attend the public high school. She said she doesn’t yet know what classes she will take and isn’t sure what to expect of school.

Grades won’t matter much, since she already has her high school diploma.

But Baake said she wants to do well in school to prepare for college. She will apply in December to colleges in Bremen and Kassel.

Her goal is to study political science and international relations, attend an American law school, and then go to work for the United Nations, the European Union or an international law firm.

“I want to make a difference, make an impact, and still have fun doing it,” Baake said. “I think an international courtroom is the place to do it.”

If the experience isn’t all she hopes it will be, Baake still has the option of attending a U.S. college next year. Most of the schools that had accepted her agreed to defer her acceptance for a year.

“College will be there when I get back,” she said. “Even if this year sucks, it’s still going to be an experience.”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.