Ice Skating, Crepes, and Ping Pong, Oh My! Some of the Amazing Events Thrown by the BDE 

Written by Lilian

November 28, 2022

The BDE, or Bureau des Étudiants, is the student government at GTL who is responsible for organizing social events to get more students connected to French culture and bridge the gap between the American and international students. Throughout the Fall semester, the BDE hosted ten different events for students including tickets to the Moselle Open, an Eight-Ball Billiards Tournament, a Halloween Ice Skating Party, and a Swing Dance Night! The BDE is composed of five students who are elected at the start of the semester: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Sports Coordinator. 

The Pool Tournament: teams of two competed bracket style during the competition. Unfortunately, most teams got out because they scratched the cue ball… 

Serving as the President this semester, First Year Biomedical Engineer Noah Pastula’s favorite event was the “Trivia Night and Crepes” event because he “always likes a little bit of friendly competition”. Teams of five competed against each other to correctly answer the most questions in categories such as “Marvel Movies”, “Geography”, and “Math”. The final question involved naming all the bus stops on Line A of the Le Met bus route. At the same time, other members of the BDE cooked homemade crepes filled with Nutella, brown sugar, and bananas. The Trivia Night was also my favorite event because my team of five won the entire competition! We beat over 10 other teams for the title!

Shoutout to the BDE for cooking over 50 crepes for Trivia participants. It took them three hours to make custom crepes for everyone. 

Staying in the spirit of competition, another very popular event was the “Ping Pong Tournament” hosted in the middle of October. This semester, first year Civil Engineer Zachary Harrison serves as the Sports Coordinator on the BDE. As the Sports Coordinator, he is responsible for organizing any team-building events and physical activities. For example, every week, Zach hosts a soccer or ultimate frisbee game on a local sports field for any GTE student to join. In his role, he also helped plan both this Ping Pong Tournament and the Billiards Tournament. According to First Year Mechanical Engineer Sofia Mujica, the Ping Pong Tournament was her favorite event because “everyone was on the edge of their seat for every little point and there was so much camaraderie between all the students regardless of year!” The event was held bracket style with everyone competing solo. Even though the event lasted over three hours—it was originally predicted to last one hour—most students stayed the entire event to cheer on the final two.  

The final two competing in the Ping Pong Tournament. 

Just this past week, the BDE hosted a Thanksgiving Dinner and Talent Show for all the students. Three students showed off their talents on the guitar and piano while students munched on a catered meal of turkey and potatoes. It was an opportunity for international students to learn a bit about American culture and give homesick American students a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving before heading back to the States in mid-December.  

Overall, the BDE has planned a ton of diverse events that have sparked the interest of all students at GTE. They have given the student body a chance to mingle as well as blow off steam from stressful classes and hectic traveling schedules. Personally, I have had an amazing time watching, participating, and winning the events! Merci BDE!