My experience as an exchange student in Turkey

Welcome, friends  to my blog where I promote studying abroad, learning foreign languages and travelling based on my own experiences. Hope u find it helpful 😊 

In this blog I share about my experience as an exchange student in Turkey at Middle East Technical University. I have decided I will tell  you in another blog about my experience of exploring Turkey. This one is dedicated only to studying experience in Turkey. 

Studying abroad has become so much more accessible today  than before. There is quite a big number of exchange programs and scholarships that allow students to study in a foreign country,  It is an amazing experience which allows one to explore different culture, go out of comfort zone and make worldwide friends.

I also decided to apply for such programs supported by my University. Turns out we have two exchange programs : Erasmus+ and Mevlana. I will tell about application to these programs in another blog . 

Through both of these programs I was accepted to Middle East Technical University for the Spring and Fall Semesters of 2017 -2018.  When it came to University options in Turkey, I thought it is either METU or no any other University. It fit me the best out of all others supported through these programs, I wanted to study only there.

Logo of Middle East Technical University

Here's some information about METU: 

-  is a publitechnical University located in Ankara, Turkey

- was established on November 15, 1956

-The official language of instruction at METU is English

- offers about 40 undergraduate programs within 5 faculties, and 97 masters and 62 doctorate programs within 5 graduate schools

- The main campus of METU spans an area of 11,100 acres

-Over one third of the 1,000 highest scoring students in the national university entrance examination choose to enroll in METU; and most of its departments accept the top 0.1% of the nearly 1.5 million applicants.

One usual winter day I got really good news of having been accepted to METU. From that time on my journey to Turkey began .....

                                      A view from the airplaine on the way to Istanbul(Turkey)

The first days of my arrival: An Orientation Week 

The very first day of my arrival,my host student met me at the airport and helped me to settle in dorm, despite that she felt sick that day.  Ankara was slightly warmer than Bishkek, because there was no snow. When we first entered and drove through the campus I understood it was huge. The very first day we-me and the other girl from Azerbaijan were there , on our way back to our dorms from the market of the campus we got lost , but luckily we made it back with the help of some people who gave us ride. 

    After all these bureaucratic procedures I had gone through before my arrival to Turkey,  a huge pack of other bureaucratic things were impatiently waiting for my arrival. Such as Registration for classes,filling out learning agreement before, during and even after the mobility, application for opening Turkish bank account, application for residence permit and etc. 

I can’t imagine how I would have dealt with all of these without huge assistance provided by the International Cooperation Office at METU.  Everything was explained in the first week of the orientation program. 

At one of the presentations during the Orientation Program Week 

                                      

        I remember the first day of our orientation program. It took place in a cultural center of the campus. The room was full of all Erasmus students from many parts of the world. I was extremely excited about meeting them and making friends. Throughout the whole week we became really close friends. 

METU is very hospitable to students, where they try their best to help them feel like home and explore Turkey as much as possible. Every student has advisors and host students, moreover  some students who volunteered were appointed at dorms to help international students to deal with problems at dorms. 

  There were also some fun parts during that orientation week where students were taken to karaoke, Turkish night and trip to Eymir Lake of METU and Istanbul. 

I enjoyed every single part of it. 

Karaoke night during Orientation program

The more I explored the campus the more I fell in love with it. Especially in spring and Fall I was just astonished by its beauty....

METU students having rest during the break 

Biology Department Building 

"Ring" Bus Service

Classes at METU :

I was quite surprised by the high English proficiency of the professors. Most of them had obtained their academic degrees abroad, mostly in English speaking countries. The level of English of students was also good.  I chose five classes in the Spring Semester and six classes in the Fall.  I can not say I loved every single class I took. There were some classes I did not like attending at all. But majority of the classes I took were very enjoyable. 

The level of difficulty of the classes was comparatively higher. Professors mostly required a lot writing. For example for the class of “Politics of Diaspora” I took, the professor required five papers. Each two week we had to upload our papers to the system of METU , where percentage of likeliness to plagiarism was immediately shown. 

I really loved how professors were open minded and were always eager to help. Before submitting any papers, presentation or article reviews we could get feedbacks from the professors, learn which things to work on more and do better. Students of my  department were of great help too. 

Most of the classes had international students, who shared their views from their own point of views and brought a lot of multiculturalism and diversity to the classes. 

My Chinese Class group 

 Extracurricular activities:  

There was huge number of student clubs one could pick from. Students would actively start advertising their clubs in the campus in the first weeks of the semester. They all would present themselves and recruit new members. I was very confused by so much option of clubs. 

I attended the club of the Japanese Culture and started attending Japanese language, which was taught for really cheap. I also joined the Archeological Club where its members  organized trips around Turkey’s valuable archeological sites for very reasonable prices with the amateur guidance of the old members of the Club. I joined one of its trips around Ankara, where students guided us around archeological sites and historical museums of Ankara. 

In the Spring I joined the International Relations club which had its own “weekly news report” “Model United Nations” club and Magazine of academic articles on International Relations. I joined the Magazine and submitted my own article by the end of the semester. 

With Archeology club members after one of the trips 

Visit of Ankara Castle with Archeology Club.


Sport at METU:

  Sport at METU is strongly supported. There are great sport facilities with fitness clubs, basketball and tennis courts and swimming pools. Many classes are offered for very reasonable prices for the ones who want to learn to do particular sport activity. In the first weeks of March, I took swimming classes for 12 days, for which I had paid only 50 turkish liras (It is almost 1000 Kyrgyz soms). Instructor was very professional who taught most of us how to swim pretty well. 

In the Fall semester, I took Zumba dance classes. Zumba instructors were always passionate about their jobs. 

At one of the sessions of Zumba Class



Uniqueness of METU:

There is some uniqueness of METU that makes it different from all other Universities of Turkey. It is its liberalism, openness that set up free platform for its students to speak out and express themselves freely. Students are encouraged to organize clubs with which they can politically identify themselves  with whichever political ideology they want.  I remember the  big flag of Marxists  hanging down some building , which would  immediately  catch my attention when coming out of the library. 
Walking along the campus I remember seeing flyers pasted to the walls of the department buildings, some were demanding freedom for the academicians of METU who were detained after the  Failed Coup of 2016 in Turkey, other were demanding equal rights for women and etc . Many other changes were as well demanded through not only flyers, but also demonstrations, organized clubs and etc
Students spoke out their demands actively. I loved it about METU students. 

A Gay Parade during Spring Festival at METU

Diversity.

 Throughout my stay I made many many friends inside and outside of Erasmus community as well. Due to the diversity of the METU community it is easy to make international friends. I have made friends from the USA, New Zealand, Tunisia, Holland , Germany and many other countries. It has all given me so much privilige to learn about their culture. We have been
able to  build strong friendship bounds despite where we come from. 

Saying good -bye 😢😢☹
The hardest thing was saying good-bye to all of the friends I had made throughout my stay there. A couple days before my leave back to Kyrgyzstan we had a nice "Good-bye Jyldyz" evening with friends where we had nice dinner and warm friend chats. I felt very sad leaving, but I believe we will meet one day again.

 Good-bye METU. I hope I see you again one day…