Tuesday, February 16, 2021 | Written by Kaitlyn
This past week, students at GTL cast their vote for the Bureau des Étudiants, nicknamed the BDE. Despite certain restrictions we might be facing this semester, its officers are off to a great start on planning exciting activities for the students at GTL. Read on to see what three BDE officers have in mind for this semester!
Pranav Sreedhar (Treasurer)
Pranav is a first-year electrical engineering major originally from India, but currently living in Paris. As treasurer of the BDE, he plays a major role in allocating funds towards student events.
What do you hope to accomplish in your position as treasurer?
With the budget in mind, I hope I can prioritize the events the majority of the student body wants. I hope to also create an efficient system of managing funds and keeping track of invoices. Hopefully, my fellow students feel comfortable coming up to me and sharing ideas on making this a semester to remember!
Any events you might want to make sure Bureau des Étudiants does?
Given the current pandemic, it has been hard for students to meet others, so as a BDE member I would like to organize events where people come together, enjoy and meet new people while keeping in mind the current regulations to keep everyone safe. The first of those events that we plan to organize is a ping pong tournament, and we really hope that people participate and use this opportunity to meet people. We hope to organize more events such as escape rooms and chocolate tasting as the situation improves!
Tell me a bit more about yourself!
I love to play sports, especially tennis and ping pong, so you’ll probably see me playing ping pong in the student lounge. With the quarantine, I have been binge watching A LOT of shows. It’s hard to say what my all-time favorite show is but some that I really enjoyed were Better Call Saul, Friends, Jane the Virgin, and Attack on Titan. I love listening to music. You’ll probably see me vibing to some Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Juice WRLD, or The Kid Laroi, or relaxing to some classics or Bollywood. As an EE major you’d probably expect this, but I love working on robotics or coding in my free time too. I also have a twin brother, Vignesh Sreedhar, who is also at Tech and a member of the BDE. I hope to get to know all of you and have a great semester despite the current pandemic!
Amanda Wang (Secretary)
Amanda is a second-year civil engineering major from Lilburn, GA. She is excited to fulfill her role as secretary for BDE by ensuring smooth communication between the board and the student body.
What do you hope to accomplish in your position as secretary?
I want to make sure communication about events flows smoothly to keep students informed about any activities that we might plan. I’m also hoping to create meeting agendas that will keep the BDE organized.
Any events you might want to make sure BDE does?
I think painting would be a fun activity for students to participate in. We are also currently planning on getting some food trucks to come to the GTL building, which I think would be a great way for us to learn more about French cuisine while getting to experience it first-hand. Other than that, I am looking forward to planning the ping-pong tournament.
Vignesh Sreedhar (Sports Coordinator)
Vignesh is a first year majoring in computer science. Like his twin brother, Pranav, he’s originally from India but is living in Paris at the moment.
What do you hope to accomplish in your position as sports coordinator?
The BDE didn’t get to plan much in terms of sports last semester due to the lockdown about a month and a half after the start of the semester, but hopefully we can accomplish a lot more this semester. We have lots of options for any sports events, especially with the ping pong table in the student lounge, and all the lawn space we have. I’m hoping to get students excited for any events we host!
Any events you might want to make sure BDE does?
As sports coordinator, I’m working on planning a ping pong tournament. We have some fun ideas for it, like doing a competition between the Lafayette and ALOES dorms. Some other ideas I have are ultimate frisbee, escape rooms, trivia nights, and treasure/scavenger hunts around Metz. We have a pretty good budget for these things so we have a lot of possibilities.
Region in Northern Italy on Tuesday. After that, we have one more class on the following Tuesday. In my circuits lab, I have my final exam on Wednesday. It’s worth 35% of my grade, so I need to do well on it. In thermodynamics, we have three more classes with three more evaluation periods and then a final exam slot, which is essentially three evaluation periods put together. I was hoping to not need to come to the final to get an A, but it’s looking more and more likely that I will need to go. In my probability and statistics class, we have a couple of classes left, one homework assignment, and then the final exam, which is also 35% of my grade, so it’s a similar scenario to circuits. In French, we have a couple of review classes and then a final exam. 
as them. Today, we did the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz museums and then tomorrow morning, we will do the Porsche factory.
same building, most of us haven’t met. However, for the first time, the French professor at Georgia Tech Lorraine, who has classes with both graduate and undergraduate students, planned an event for the two programs to come together and mix so that graduate students and undergraduate students could meet. She thought this event could be beneficial to both groups, as some graduate students are coming to the Atlanta campus in the spring and needed information on housing and things to do in the city, and undergraduate students could hear about graduate programs. Professor Serafin introduced the idea to her French class, which I’m a part of, and there was a general interest from our group. She sweetened the idea with free pizza so we could get some of our friends to come, and we promised we could get some more undergraduate students to come, and so Professor Serafin went ahead and planned the event. 
rotated after about two minutes. While this ended up seeming like a really short time, both sides were able to introduce themselves and share some valuable information with the other. After about thirty minutes, there was about five minutes of free for all, so you could meet new students or pick up on a conversation that was cut short by the two minute timer. After all of this, we could continue to mingle and eat the pizza that just arrived. 
are like miniature exams and need to be prepared for in a similar manner. Even so, I’ve been traveling (as evidenced by my travel-related posts). Here’s how I’ve managed to travel and try my best to keep up with school and the blog.
racking thing that has happened so far, as we were supposed to grab stuff that we didn’t have but that we needed. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize what exactly I needed until after this event took place.
even faster than before. I’ve spent the last few days in Barcelona, which has been absolutely magical, but before I left I got the chance to talk to one more graduate student! Her name is Sanhita and she is completing her master’s degree at GTL in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Originally from India, Sanhita completed her undergraduate there and then decided to apply at Georgia Tech Lorraine because it is a “great school with a very high ranking and an opportunity to do two semesters in France and two in the United States, which is unheard of.” After this semester, like the other graduate students, Sanhita is doing a six month internship starting pretty immediately after this spring term ends. She hasn’t decided if she wants to work elsewhere or continue to research with the company she is planning on working with this summer. The company is an oil fields company where she will be working mostly in controls based engineering. Things like how the oil is drilled, the pressure, etc. It is definitely something that she is interested in working in the future and is also something that aligns with her past work which is why she thinks she will be a good fit for the company. When I asked about which classes she is taking, she listed autonomous robotics, network securities, non linear controls. (She let me know that “this is a really hard semester, by the way.”) Her favorite this semester has been network securities, which has been interesting for her and different than the rest. Since this semester has been rather hectic, Sanhita has had less time to travel, but mentioned that last semester she visited Switzerland and Germany which was really fun. I had a really nice time talking to Sanhita. She hasn’t been to the States before, so she’s looking forward to going to Atlanta, and I wish her all the best!