Cole Caswell: Le BDE de l'INSEEC Bordeaux

Here at INSEEC there is annual campaign between student associations called the BDE or “The List.” In the month of March three different associations of first year students campaign and do literally almost anything for the student vote. What the students are voting for is to make that association the most important student run association at INSEEC for the following year.

This means A LOT to the students. They put in so much effort putting on events, advertising their “asso” and doing favours for the students. Each association sets up a hotline where anyone at INSEEC can call and ask a favour. These favours range from sending a student over to clean your apartment, do your dishes, bring you food, drive you home, or even give you a massage. It is available at almost all hours and certain students use it as much as they possibly can.

Each association also puts on a big party called an appartathlon. If you want to go, you buy your ticket but you must be very fast as they sell out almost immediately. When you purchase your ticket you give them your number and an address is texted to you 20 minutes before the start of the party. At the apartment there is an open bar, some snacks, and about 70-100 other students. Because of the chaos, it only lasts for two hours. After the two hours, the group moves onto the next planned apartment and repeats. The next one also lasts two hours before departing for the third apartment.  The third one is of course the same as the previous two but they get progressively more wild. They are truly hard to beat as each association is trying to host the best appartathlon.

As you see below, this is moving from one apartment to another on the tram. The party is not restricted to the apartments and some of the students sprayed soda and shot confetti while on the tram. A couple Canadians got the worst of it.

After three or so weeks of free labour, loads of free food at school, and many events there is the voting day.  If there isn’t a majority, the two associations with the most votes move onto the next round of voting the following day. The announcement of the winner takes place at a club somewhere in Bordeaux as it allows for immediate celebration to occur. A lot is on the line and emotions are high as everyone has worked so hard for almost a month. The winner is announced on a large projector and half of the club erupts with cheers where the other half lowers there heads and some leave the building. The three weeks of hard work is over and the level of activity slows down from a sprint to a more sustainable pace.

Below we have a fallen unnamed study abroader en route from the 2^nd apartment to the 3^rd at the final appartathlon and also the appartathlon of the winning association.

 

 

Cole is a third year Business Administration student studying abroad at INSEEC in Bordeaux, France.