The Idea

At the Technische Universtität München, there had been a discussion about setting up a proper university grammar school as an analogy to a university hospital for several years. The basic aim here was to offer highly gifted grammar school students who are interested in mathematics, science and engineering the early participation in university research and teaching. Apart from the considerations at TUM, the grammar school Otto-von-Taube-Gymnasium Gauting expressed their wish of extending their remedial classes that already existed for lower and intermediate secondary levels to the upper secondary level of the grammar school.

At the TUMKolleg, 15 talented grammar school students per year are given the chance to take part in an independent secondary level track guiding them through the advanced level of grammar school to the German A-levels, the Abitur. Being taught with an extended curriculum that contains special teaching methods, the young talents get the possibility to take part in selected university courses and to be involved in research projects carried out at the TUM faculties. A key figure of the TUMKolleg is the interdisciplinary studying and researching. Therefore, the TUMKolleg is working at the interface of grammar school and university.

The first class of TUMKolleg started in 2009/10 with 14 students participating. In 2016, the seventh class took place with two parallel tracks: The TUMKolleg is part of the upper secondary level at the grammar school Otto-von-Taube-Gymnasium in Gauting as well as the Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium in Garching.