President
William Demmelbauer is the new president of Student Club SKEMA Raleigh. Former president Yoann Tarantini was defeated in the election one month ago by Demmelbauer, who obtained 57 percent of the votes.
SKEMA is a French business school founded in 2009 and has three campuses in France. In 2011, a new location was set up on Centennial Campus, the only SKEMA location in the United States.
Each year, more than 200 hundred people come for the fall semester and even more for the spring semester.
After a month of leading the organization, the new president gave his impression of the life in the U.S. and SKEMA.
“The partnership between SKEMA and N.C. State is very interesting.” Demmelbauer said. “All the students are considered as N.C. State students so they can be part of all the events of the campus, and all the French students are very happy to be here.”
Demmelbauer decided to become the president of the organization for several reasons.
“I was a member of the student club last year in France, and I would like to continue in the U.S. to represent my school,” Demmelbauer said.
He said that being president will allow him to meet new people from the United States.
“We plan a lot of activities for the students” Demmelbauer said. “But we have already done some events. We organized some parties [in] downtown Raleigh as we did on Tuesday, with the Oktoberfest. To organize such events like that we work with the French Club and the International Business Club.”
Demmelbauer said that the organization will not organize any trips during the semester.
“Most of the students in SKEMA have already planned to travel all around the U.S. as they just stay here for one semester, that is to say four months,” Demmelbauer said. “They want to go to Miami, Washington, New York… in other words, they want to explore the country.”
Demmelbauer said that one problem that students have on campus is with the Wolfline bus system.
“As we all live far from the campus, we all have to take the bus,” Demmelbauer said. “But if you missed it, you have to wait one hour to get the other one. This is probably the main problem that students face.”
Demmelbauer said that he wants French students to interact with more N.C. State students.
“The aim is to make event with American people, not only with French people,” he said. “We use social network to be more visible and also flyer.”
Demmelbauer said that the organization will try to do its best to be represented in Raleigh.
“We plan to draw in the free expression tunnel to show to all American students that SKEMA students had such a great time in the U.S.,” he said. “Go Pack, go SKEMA and go student club.”