Refusing the Single Story: Celebrating the Class of 2026
A Ceremony shaped by Community
On May 22, the UWC Robert Bosch College community gathered under bright Freiburg sunshine to celebrate the graduation of the Class of 2026 — the 11th generation of students at RBC.
Parents and guardians, host families, friends, staff, and supporters joined the Closing Ceremony both on campus and via livestream from around the world, marking the end of two remarkable years lived together in community.
Beautifully planned and led by the student events committee together with staff members Ines and Will, the ceremony reflected everything this generation had become: thoughtful, courageous, humorous, reflective, and deeply connected to one another.
Stories of Growth, Friendship, and Difference
Throughout the ceremony, speeches in German, Mandarin, Spanish, and Arabic captured the many dimensions of life at RBC. Students spoke about friendship, difference, courage, homesickness, difficult conversations, late-night talks, shared meals, and the quiet moments that often shape us most profoundly. Again and again, one idea returned: that living together across cultures and experiences changes not only how we see the world, but also how we see ourselves.
There was laughter — about Mensa meals, Project Week travel delays, and unforgettable shared memories — but also deep honesty about the challenges of learning how to live alongside difference in an increasingly divided world. The speeches reflected the reality that RBC is not a perfect place, but precisely because of that, it becomes a place of growth: a place where students learn empathy, resilience, responsibility, and how to stay connected even through disagreement.
Carrying RBC Into the World
In her Closing Ceremony speech, Rektor Helen White reflected on the extraordinary importance of what this generation has practiced over the last two years:
“You have spent two years refusing the single story. About each other. About the world. About yourselves.”
She reminded students that while much of the world increasingly encourages division, simplification, and distance, Generation 11 chose something different: to live with one another fully — across cultures, beliefs, identities, and perspectives. To disagree without disconnecting. To remain curious instead of fearful. To hold complexity rather than reduce one another to assumptions.
What emerged throughout the ceremony was a powerful sense that the most important learning at RBC cannot be measured through exams or transcripts alone. It lives in friendships formed across continents, in moments of care during difficult times, in conversations that challenged long-held assumptions, and in the experience of building a community together.
To the Class of 2026: congratulations. Thank you for your openness, your courage, your compassion, your humour, your questions, your care for one another, and the countless ways you transformed this community over the past two years.
Wherever your journeys lead next, may you carry forward the ability to stay open, deeply human, and connected across difference. The world needs it.
