Ingrid Fiedler traded her senior year at Goodrich High School for an amazing opportunity few teens get to experience.
The 17-year-old is studying with 150 students from all over the world at the United World College Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, located in southeast Europe. Fiedler is enrolled in the UWC’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, equivalent to the last two years of high school, with many advanced placement classes, and about half of the freshman year of university.
‘Technically, I won’t graduate from high school, but the IB diploma is equivalent,? she said. ‘After this I will be able to to go university in the States or Europe or almost anywhere else in the world. I am still figuring out what I want to do after this.?
UWC Mostar is one of 14 United World Colleges, the mission of which is to build understanding among cultures by bringing students together from all over the world for an education and to bring about peace and a sustainable future.
Fiedler attends classes with 75 students from Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 20 from other countries also located in the Balkan Peninsula including Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Croatia, Kosovo and Greece, and sixty students from other countries including Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Israel, Rwanda, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Swaziland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Turkey, England, Lebanon, Iraq, Hong Kong, and the United States.
Each student had to be nominated by committees in their home countries and given a scholarship to attend the college, where they are housed in two dormitories, one on the Bosnian side of town and one on the Croatian side of town. In between is an orange gymnasium located on a street that 15 years ago was the frontline for the Bosnian War.
‘Here in Mostar the UWC mission is being achieved as we come to understand each other’s cultures and each other,? said Fiedler. ‘There is always something going on and always someone ready to have fun or study together. Mostar is both beautiful and about as different from Goodrich as I could have imagined.?
Fiedler volunteers at a refugee camp where she plays with the children who live there. She and her fellow students also volunteer at a school for disabled children and at a Roma (Gypsy) camp to give the children attention they might not otherwise get.
She has taken advantage of her breaks from UWC to travel to Austria, Prague, Germany and Croatia. Earlier this month, the former member of Team 70, More Martians, Goodrich High School’s FIRST Robotics team, competed with Team 3368 from Bosnia at the FIRST Robotics Israeli regional competition.
Fiedler credits her experience as a member of the Goodrich robotics team with giving her the confidence to actually get into the United World College in Mostar. Once she arrived, she started the first ever robotics team at UWC Mostar and they, like teams around the world, went to work building a robot in six weeks. In Bosnia and Herzegovina however, there were some additional challenges. Rather than getting the kit of parts to build their robot on the first day of the season, they were still waiting a week and a half later for their parts to get through customs.
Still, the GHS sister robotics team won the Rookie Inspiration Award, given for community outreach and spreading the word of FIRST.
‘In Bosnia and Europe, robotics hasn’t been that popular, but it’s going to be,? said Barb Armstrong, Fiedler’s mother. ‘For a rookie team they placed well.?
Fiedler was also nominated for the Dean Kamen Award, named for the founder of FIRST Robotics and the inventor of the segway, for going above and beyond in her work with the team. She and 90 other nominated students will be among those traveling to Atlanta, Ga. next month for the FIRST Robotics Championship.
‘This is really opening opportunities for Ingrid,? said Armstrong. ‘She is already going to work in Ann Arbor for a software company. She’s only 17, what do you put on your resume when you’re 17, but she has won several awards, all thanks to FIRST Robotics. It’s a wonderful program and I’m appalled more kids aren’t involved.?
For more information about robotics at Goodrich, contact Pat Major at Goodrich High School, 810-591-2251.