Erasmus Exchange Fall 2018-2019
Erasmus Report
Personal Report Koç University Erasmus Exchange Fall 2018-2019
My name is Anna-Lena Hasselder (a.hasselder@student.rug.nl) and I am an International Relations and International Organizations student in my third year. During the last semester, I attended courses at the Koç University which is located in Istanbul, Turkey. Overall, I am satisfied with my experience there and would recommend the program to other students from our university as well.
First and foremost, as an International Relations Student, I would recommend going abroad to Turkey as the political situation is fairly interesting and as it is valuable to gain insights into a country that has close proximity with the European Union, but is not a part to it completely. I started out taking 6 courses initially, although one course, ballet beginner and ballet intermediate, were purely for my own sake. The courses I attended were Gender and Politics, Political Economy of Turkey, Philosophy of Mind, Brain and Behavior, and Migration and Globalization. As one can see, all of these courses are quite multidisciplinary, but I liked this as my minor so that I can also have some insights outside of my classical bachelor. The period of choosing the courses was quite stressful, I pretty much had to run to all the teachers begging for consent and had to change some policies of Koç so that I could attend these courses. Nevertheless, they have a great mentor program so that my mentor helped me to get into all the courses I wanted to get in to. Also, they are more lenient with regard to exchange students, so I would suggest to students to just contact the teachers or the office in case the course is not eligible for exchange students or if other issues emerge.
Unfortunately, I had many issues with the course Political Economy of Turkey offered by one particular teacher that acted very rudely towards foreign students. Basically, most of the required readings were in Turkish so that it was very hard to follow the course. Nevertheless, the teacher maintained that we exchange students (five of us) would still be fine during the exams. It turned out, however, that we got some of the lowest grades and even following classes was hard as the teacher sometimes just held discussions in Turkish. As a result of this, I ended up dropping the course although I found the topic very interesting. The university apologized and also helped me a lot with the procedure.
However, I need to stress that this is an exemption, all other courses I followed were super fascinating, of high quality and very including towards exchange students. The courses and materials were all in English and I learned a lot. One might think that the education is of a lower standard in Turkey, but I can only say that especially the courses Gender and Politics and Philosophy of Mind demanded a great work ethic and ended up teaching me more than certain courses would at Rug. In this sense, I would like to stress that it is important to check on the professors teaching the course as Koç really has some great professors that care greatly about the academic development of the students. The climate in the classes was friendly and open-minded. If I had questions or wanted additional feedback on my work, I could easily schedule a meeting with teachers and they would always try to help me. In this respect, the office of international affairs and the mentors were also very helpful if I had questions or encountered difficulties.
Erasmus Exchange Fall 2018-2019 Moreover, there is a great variety of programs and clubs offered by the university that one can attend such as football, American football, basketball etc. but also painting, musical and choir, diving, sailing and so on and so forth. I was part of the diving club and would suggest students to try it out as the team is very nice. If students decide to live on campus, this is a great way to make connections and to learn new things as the price for these clubs is very cheap. As mentioned above, the university also offers certain courses for credits such as Yoga, Ballet (beginner, intermediate etc.) and other personal development courses that are free of charge. However, most of these courses cannot be counted as credits towards a minor, so it is necessary to consult this earlier with the student advisors at RUG.
Although the university offers accommodation, I decided not to stay at the campus, but looked for an apartment in the heart of Istanbul as I wanted to learn about the Turkish culture and Istanbul. If one wants to learn more about Turkey and explore the city itself and live under more lenient rules, I suggest this as it gives more privacy since at Koç one shares a room with at least one more student. However, it needs to be considered that depending on how far one lives from campus, there is considerable travel time as the university is located all the way in the north next to the black sea. My travel time was an hour to university, and an hour back. Nevertheless, it was very simple to get there as there is a metro nearby and as the university offers shuttles from the metro to the campus and back. To address the cost, with a student metro card, a metro ride is 1.25 lira (0.55 if you travel again within the same hour) and 4.00 lira for the shuttle although there are even cheaper options. To put this into perspective, 1 Euro is worth around 6 Lira, sometimes even more, so that both ways would cost you around 2 euro (note: one does not have classes every day depending on the schedule one chooses). For transportation to school, I paid 8 Euros a week.
Considering other expenses, I paid 280 Euro for my spacious, super nicely located room at Galata Kulesi which is far less than I pay in Groningen. Moreover, given the exchange rate, everything in Turkey is comparatively cheap so that one can get a really good meal in a restaurant for 30 Lira (5 Euro) and can also travel around the country for cheap. However, the money received by the Erasmus Grant is not much, so that additional funding from parents or savings are necessary. Meals can be bought at Koç University, the campus offers everything one needs such as a supermarket, several coffee shops, several restaurants, cafeteria etc. In this sense, one can find everything one needs. There is also a gym, inside and outside pool, football field and soccer field, tennis and squash courts etc. that one can use free of charge. Additionally, although Koç is an international university, it might happen that staff such as secretary or restaurant staff does not speak English but usually it is possible to transcend what one would like to request (also students generally are willing to help translate). I tried to learn Turkish in the beginning, but gave up on it at one point as the language is highly difficult and very different from my own. While the university offers language courses, after a semester of A1, you will only do A1 and some of A2 level exercises so that it is necessary to take extra lessons outside of university if one wants to obtain a higher level of language proficiency. Finally, I would greatly recommend the program to students from RUG that are interested to learn more about non-European cultures while also wanting to obtain a good quality education with good facilities and friendly teachers and staff.
