In the fall of 2002, Georgia Tech mechanical engineering student Guilhem Denozière met Annie, a University of Tennessee French major teaching English in Metz, France, while both stood in line at a student cafeteria. The chance meeting grew into a decades-long international romance. The couple married in a 12th-century church near Guilhem's village, made local headlines, and honeymooned in the city that brought them together.
Twenty-four years later, their son, Owen, is returning to Metz to begin his own Georgia Tech journey through the First-Year Semester Abroad program at Georgia Tech-Europe. Drawn by the chance to live independently, travel widely and build an international network, Owen is stepping through the same doors that shaped his parents' lives. For the Denozières, the return is both a new chapter and a homecoming, and their first stop is already planned: the cafeteria café where it all began.
In the fall of 2002, Guilhem, a Georgia Tech mechanical engineering student from a small village north of Paris, stood in line at the CROUS student cafeteria in Metz, France. He was there as part of GTE’s dual degree program with Arts et Métiers (ENSAM), one of France’s elite engineering schools. His days followed a familiar rhythm at Georgia Tech-Europe in Metz: focused mornings in class, afternoons in the lab, and evenings at the cafés around the picturesque Place Saint-Jacques. Guilhem was determined to finish his studies in Atlanta and had resolved not to let a new romance distract him. Then he met Annie.
Annie came to Metz through a different route. A French major from the University of Tennessee Knoxville, she was assigned to Lycée Robert Schuman, a high school near the Technopole. Her days were spent in the classroom teaching English to children, and her evenings were spent grading papers and occasionally visiting local friends. That night, she planned to meet a friend at the CROUS cafeteria, never imagining she would meet her future husband.
For most, it was just another Tuesday at the CROUS. For Guilhem and Annie Denozière, it was the beginning of a decades-long international love story that started that fateful day in a cafeteria in Metz. After several years of dating in France and then in the United States, the couple married in a 12th-century church near Guilhem’s village (population 150). The international wedding was such a novelty that it made the front page of three local papers. The couple honeymooned in Metz, revisiting the city that had brought them together. It was their last trip there until now.
Twenty-four years later, their son, Owen, is about to enter the same doors at Georgia Tech-Europe as a student participating in Georgia Tech’s First-Year Semester Abroad (FYSA) program.
Returning to Metz
Owen Denozière chose Georgia Tech over rival UGA after campus tours convinced him it was the right fit. When he learned about the First-Year Semester Abroad (FYSA) program at GTE, the decision to return to Metz, the site where his family’s story began, was straightforward. Georgia Tech’s FYSA program offers students the opportunity to begin their degree programs in a living-learning cohort abroad. This curated learning experience is focused on encouraging independent living while supporting first-year learning and resource needs in an immersive, international environment.
“I have always dreamed of traveling the world. When I heard that I could spend this very first semester abroad, it was just a no-brainer,” Owen says. “It was the same place they found love. I feel like it’s going to be an amazing travel experience. I like the idea of independence, being able to jump around every weekend and let the spontaneity take me where I want to go.”
Owen’s parents share his excitement. “The expression in French is 'les voyages forment la jeunesse,' which translates roughly to ‘travel shapes young minds.’ From my perspective, this is a unique opportunity for him to become an independent young man, to experience different cultures and to seize every chance to explore,” says Guilhem.
Annie’s hopes are in the transformative potential of the learning experience:
“He’s already a wonderful young man, but I’m excited to see the growth that will come. When I studied abroad and came home, I felt like I was a new person. I can’t wait to see who that person is going to be when he comes back and get to know him all over again.”
Beyond personal growth, Owen has his eye on Georgia Tech’s International Plan, a degree designation that demonstrates a graduate has participated in a series of international studies designed to support the development of the intercultural competencies essential for success in a global workplace. Owen is eager to build the kind of international professional network that the intimate GTE environment uniquely enables through smaller class sizes and proximity to European engineering students in the Technopole and student housing.
This fall, Owen begins his own Metz chapter: his first semester at Georgia Tech, his first time living alone and abroad, and his first chance to explore the city where his family's story started. The family plans to visit Owen in Metz, perhaps even squeezing in a Christmas ski trip in the Grand Est mountains. Annie and Guilhem already know their first stop: the CROUS café. It’s been more than two decades since they first stood in line together, but some moments in life are meant to be lived and enjoyed again, across generations.
