International BEST

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Monday, 01 February 2010 11:36 Written by Ainur

International BEST site

 

General INFO

 

Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) is:

  • voluntary, apolitical, non-profit, non-representative international association of European students of technology
  • growing, well organised, powerful, young and innovative student network in 86 Local BEST Groups (LBGs) in 30 countries
  • more than 1 000 000 European students involved
  • more than 2000 active members

The core activity of BEST is providing complementary education - bringing a significant added value to the education provided by the universities. For realization of this activity BEST has not only strong relationship among 86 universities of BEST association but also connections with student organizations in Germany and Canada.

Another important activity of BEST is providing career support - connecting students with their future employers. It is provided by regular Job Fairs.

Increasing educational involvement - increasing the awareness of students on issues related to engineering education and improving engineering education through the input of those students.

Mission

Developing students.

BEST helps students to achieve an international mindset, to reach a better understanding of cultures and societies and to develop the capacity to work in culturally diverse environments. BEST creates opportunities for personal development of students and supports them in reaching their full potential.

BEST Spirit

BEST Spirit is the inspiration for all our actions:

FLEXIBILITY

We seek the ability to make changes and deal with changing conditions. We are open to everything new. We value and raise the ability of being mobile and to quickly respond to changes in the environment or any other obstacles that we face.

FRIENDSHIP

We build good relationships in which people help, support and care for one another. We value good personal relations and teamwork. We focus on each person involved in our activities and in this way we create synergy.

FUN

We enjoy everything we do. We value positive emotions of the people involved in our actions. We strive to make our activities enjoyable to everybody who is connected to them. We act with passion and strive to share this passion with people around us.

IMPROVEMENT

We strive to continuously improve the standards in everything we do. We use all our creativity to enhance the way we work. This is to guarantee constant development of our actions.

LEARNING

We gain skills and understanding through experience. We value everything we learn through the experience of being involved in our activities and we strive to learn as much as possible from every aspect of our work. We value personal development and strive for an open learning community, where we have the freedom to share and develop ideas.

Structure of BEST

The basis of our organization is formed by our 86 Local BEST Groups spread in 30 European countries. Each of these groups have their own local boards and organize local and international BEST activities.

Next to the local groups, we have a well developed international structure. The International Board is composed of 6 members: President, Treasurer, Secretary and 3 Vice-Presidents: for External Services, for Internal Support and for Local Group Support. The main tasks of the International Board are global co-ordination of BEST and its bodies and programmes, execution of GM decisions, promotion of aims and purpose of BEST and support for quality assurance of all BEST activities.

Particular fields, tasks and programmes of BEST are coordinated by international teams. These teams are groups of voluntary BEST members managing the day-to-day work and development of BEST. 6 international committees (EduCO, EEC, finTeam, ITC, markeTeam, TiGro) are supported by students from all of the Europe.

BEST members regularly meet for internal events where they can work on BEST-specific issues, receive training and strengthen their ties.

History of BEST

The idea of BEST was born in May 1987 in Stockholm (Sweden) during a European conference for students of physics and mathematics. The outcome of the conference was a decision to organize an International Week every six months in a different country during which the interaction between European students would be developed.

The second International Week was held in Grenoble (France, March 1988). This meeting involved students not only from physics and mathematics but also from other areas of competence. The meeting in Grenoble was followed by an International Week held in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). However, the first meeting held exclusively for BEST was in Berlin (Germany) in April 1989. There it was decided that BEST would consist of a Board, a General Assembly and members. Taking part in this meeting were delegates from all over Europe: Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, Eindhoven, Grenoble, Helsinki, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Louvain-la-Neuve, Paris, Stockholm, Trondheim, Turin, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich. At this meeting BEST was officially founded with the aim to promote exchanges and communication between European Students of Technology. And the story began… .

Join BEST! Write down your name in the history of European Education!

 

 

Main BEST Services

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Monday, 17 May 2010 17:48 Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 21:32 Written by Дима Нестеренко

The main events organized by BEST are BEST courses, Events on Education, Leisure Events and Job Fairs.
BEST Courses are the core activity of BEST and they can either be Courses on Technology, Courses on Career or BEST Engineering Competitions. These are events about one to two weeks in length, uniting technology students from all over Europe to study a technological subject. However, while these subjects are of an attractive and innovative nature, mixing various topics in engineering education, education on itself is not the only goal of these events: Equally important are expanding horizons, improving cultural understanding and in general providing European students of technology with the opportunity to experience something unique[citation needed] for little cost.

The quality and openness of BEST Courses are important, as they distinguish BEST from other international student organisations. Any student from sciences and technology universities with a Local BEST Group (LBG) can apply to any of the before mentioned BEST activities, without having to become a BEST member. Thus, BEST provides a service not only to its members, but to all engineering students from associated universities. Furthermore, BEST has an internal quality standard that the courses are required to fulfil. In a Course, participants will have all food, lodging, travel costs during the course, cultural activities and an exciting academic program supplied during the course. Almost every BEST group organizes such a course every year.

Another important type of BEST event is the Engineering Competition (BEC). These are events organised in collaboration with a number of important European companies in the field of technology. The companies propose a problem to be solved by teams made of participating students. The competition events usually begin with training sessions, followed by several rounds of competition. Thus, students have the opportunity to consolidate their engineering capacities. The BEC concept has been conceived in order to complete the theoretical part of university studies with a practical one. Therefore, students will be able to increase their knowledge and get used to constructive thinking, as well as a different vision of a problem. Since 2009, the local engineering competitions (LEC) are brought together in a common project where winners from these competitions compete at the Regional and National level and then the winners go to the European final which is called EBEC