Lukas Schmiele was at GESS from 2006 to 2017, lived in Singapore for a total of 11 years and spent almost his entire school career at GESS, from Grade 2 all the way to Abitur. We recently found out that he successfully completed his Master of European Studies in Belgium and we naturally wanted to find out a little more.
Was it a big change for you to move from primary school in Germany to GESS in Singapore?
According to my parents, it took me about six months. I was a bit shy at first, mainly because so many people spoke English in the playground and I couldn’t speak it at all back then. But that changed quickly. Nevertheless, there are still a few funny stories from our early days: my brother and I thought for a long time that it was just a holiday and that we would return to Germany at some point. When our furniture arrived and all the toys were there, we both slowly realised that we wouldn’t be going back to Germany any time soon. Another time we went for ice cream in the botanical gardens and my brother and I wanted to eat this red raspberry ice cream. We both got a scoop, bit into it and both started crying at the same time because it turned out to be the local red bean ice cream.
What did your journey look like after your time at GESS?
After graduating from high school, I moved straight to Germany to live with my grandparents near Berlin. However, I didn’t really know what I wanted to study. Although I had already looked into it at school and there were also counselling services at GESS, I still didn’t know for quite a long time where I wanted to go.
I was already interested in politics and economics back then, but I didn’t quite know how to combine the two. I therefore decided not to start my studies straight away, but did various internships in a start-up and a party headquarters in the year after I finished school to get a taste of different areas. In the end, I decided to study for a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics at the University of Potsdam.
How was the transition from school life to internships to student life for you?
I moved to Berlin on my own at the end of 2017 and rented a flat with a friend Miki. It was a funny coincidence, because Miki was doing his A-levels at a German school in Kuala Lumpur at the time. I played in the big band at GESS and did a lot of sport, so there were regular exchanges with the German school in Kuala Lumpur. In Berlin, we had a Singapore flag and a Malaysia flag hanging in the kitchen. As soon as I had sorted out my accommodation, it was quite easy to find a degree programme because it was clear that I wanted to study in Berlin or Potsdam. After the internships, I listened to my gut feeling and simply decided to study a combination of politics and economics.
You completed an outstanding Master’s degree in Belgium last year and we are naturally curious to know exactly what you did and what made you decide to study in Brussels. Can you tell us a bit more about it and also about the Advanced Masters that you are currently completing?
The reason why I went to Belgium in the first place was because I realised relatively quickly that the international trade policy I was most interested in was not actually done in Germany, but mainly in the EU. So I moved on to the KU Leuven, one of the oldest universities in Europe around 20 minutes from Brussels, for the Master’s programme.
The Master of European Studies essentially teaches you how the EU works and why things often don’t turn out the way you expected or hoped in the end. I find this colourful mixture of different nations, languages, cultures and political interests very exciting. In the interdisciplinary degree programme in political, economic and administrative sciences, I focused on how the EU can make its economic and trade policy fairer and more sustainable. I completed this Master’s degree last year and then decided to do a further Master’s degree in the same subject area. As part of this programme, I am currently studying in Paris and taking a closer look at how legislators can work with companies to implement more resilient and environmentally friendly supply chains.
What did you take away from your time at GESS that you feel helps you now as a student?
Because children regularly come and go at GESS, I learnt to interact with new people and therefore never had a problem making friends or actively approaching people myself. But what really benefits me now in retrospect during my studies is that I was able to develop a fundamental interest in other opinions during my time at GESS.
In my studies and during my work in the Bundestag, it’s often about finding a compromise between different opinions. In discussions, I always try to understand how others arrive at their points of view. This openness also comes from the fact that I always had very interactive lesson formats at GESS where there was a lot of discussion and you had your own project work. For example, I can still remember exactly how we followed and discussed the live projections for Donald Trump’s election in English lessons with Mr Rieckmann and Ms Behnke on the blackboard.
We were also often allowed to give presentations at GESS. When I then had to give presentations at university or explain how the Bundestag works to a group of visitors at work, it was never anything super unusual because I was already familiar with it from school.
Lukas during his third grade at GESS 
Grade 4: Kids Dash with Thomas Teichert
Do you have any advice for our current students?
My first tip is to take your time and find out what you want to do through internships, for example. It helped me a lot that I took the one year after my A-levels to do this.
My second tip is to look beyond Germany when choosing a degree programme. During my bachelor’s degree, I found it annoying that a lot of things were only taught in German. Students at GESS generally have very good German and English skills; many even grew up bilingually. This is a great advantage and that’s why it’s also worth taking a look at other European countries, where you can study in English much more often and, as in my case, across different subjects.
Apart from that, I would really recommend working as much as possible during your studies. For example, I had the opportunity to work for various members of the German Bundestag or as a tutor at the chair. In other words, jobs where I learnt things that helped me progress in my subject area. This experience helps you enormously later on and often takes some of the stress out of studying when you can say: I’m not just a student, I also define myself through my student job. Then it’s not so bad if an exam doesn’t go so well, because you develop other qualifications alongside your studies that help you progress.
Image on the right: Working in the Bundestag – Lukas with Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz
