Program of Civil Engineering

Hello, I am Professor Doctor İlknur Özbey. I am a faculty member at Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Civil Engineering Department, Geotechnics Division. I am also the Head of the Geotechnics Division. I completed my undergraduate, graduate and doctorate studies at Boğaziçi University, Civil Engineering Department. I worked as a research assistant at the same university between 1994-2001. In 2002, I started working in the Civil Engineering Department of our university. In 2018, I was appointed as a professor and I taught many courses and advised theses at undergraduate and graduate levels. I am still involved in many research projects with my students. Civil engineering Department was founded 1992-1993, providing education at undergraduate and graduate levels. Since the 2012-2013 academic year, we have been providing at least 30% of the total credits of our courses in English. For this reason, we have a 1-year compulsory preparatory class for students whose English level is insufficient before starting off with the department courses. Those who pass the English Proficiency Exam can directly begin in the first grade. Our department has 4 professors, 12 associate professors, 8 doctoral lecturers and 13 research assistants. We are intensively involved in the academic field. There are 7 main disciplines representing the basic fields of the Civil Engineering Department. These are the Geotechnics, Hydraulics, Materials, Mechanics, Construction, Transportation and Construction Management Divisions. We have nearly 800 students at the undergraduate level. We also have a master's and doctoral program. Approximately 350 students are enrolled here. The courses in our department are planned within the framework of the regulations of our university. Our students in their first year take courses such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer programming, technical drawing that prepare them for engineering education. We call these courses must courses and are generally similar or the same as in the other engineering departments. From the first year to the last year, the number of vocational courses increase. It is aimed for the student to gain the basic formation related to the profession. Some of our courses can be classified as compulsory, some as optional and some as social courses. Compulsory courses are courses that students must take. For example; We have compulsory vocational courses such as static, building materials, fluid mechanics, soil mechanics, transportation systems, reinforced concrete and building management. Elective courses are intended to guide the student towards a specific area of ​​interest in civil engineering. These courses are chosen by the student himself. There is a prerequisite rule established for some of the courses. A student may need to have taken another basic course before to take some courses in the future. Our students have information about the offered courses, the semester they are offered, whether they are compulsory or elective, and the prerequisites that are required. They can be found on our department's website. There are 5 laboratories in our Civil Engineering Department. They are modern and comprehensive laboratories. They serve the needs for scientific studies, research and projects. These laboratories are the Soil Mechanics Laboratory, Construction and Materials Laboratory, Transportation Engineering Laboratory, Hydraulics Laboratory, which has both an open and a closed area. We also have a Building and Mechanical Laboratory located at Büyükçekmece Campus. This laboratory also has a 440 square meter single-span experimental area. It also has facilities such as a traveling crane, reaction wall, strong flooring, vehicle entrance and exit. In our laboratories, undergraduate students who are taking compulsory courses, but most specifically elective courses and graduation projects, always have the opportunity to see and actively participate in experiments.
In our department there is a commission that regulates, monitors and evaluates internship related issues. Students of our department can do internships starting from the end of their first year. Our compulsory internship period spans 70 days in total. Its compromises of 45 days on site and 25 days in the office. The internships completed by our students are delivered to us as internship notebooks and evaluated by our department's internship commission in detail. If our students request, our faculty members always do their best to find internship places for our students. We also have graduation projects. We offer the graduation projects in the form of two courses. For the graduation projects of our students, we ask them to study one of the topics they have learned up to that day in depth, as well as learn to be in a team and have the ability to carry out a project from beginning to end. Graduation projects are one of the most enjoyable lessons of our department. At the beginning of the fourth grade, our students get in touch with the faculty members about the topics they are interested in and state what they would like study for their thesis and ask them to become their advisor. If this request is accepted, the student and the faculty member can work together. We also have a graduation project commission in our department. They carry out this whole process in a very transparent way. At the end of the year, our students have to present the projects they have made, studied and prepared with great effort before the jury. There are question and answer sections, and their friends can listen to these presentations if they wish. They prepare posters about this and present these posters in our department. As a matter of fact, we choose the best graduation project of that day, and the best poster project as the department. We hold a small award ceremony at the end and also have a group photo taken in front of the department. Thus, before the graduation ceremony, we say our goodbyes to the students. As the Civil Engineering Department, we are the department that offers the most foreign exchange opportunities to our students, as a part of the Erasmus and Mevlana programs. As a part of these foreign education programs, our students have the right to receive education for nearly up to a year at the universities we have agreements with. In addition, we are working with some of these universities to open a double major program. We hope that we will able to announce this in the future. Within the scope of Erasmus Exchange Program, our students can apply for an exchange with our 6 partner universities in Germany, Croatia, Italy, Poland, England, Romania and the Czech Republic. As for the Mevlana Exchange Program they can go to the United States of America, Russia, England, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia. The student needs to meet the requirements that the partner university announces. As faculty members, we are always involved in different professional national and international organizations. This is part of our profession. Two of our faculty members and graduate students are holding an online international conference in July 2020. We have organized such events very successfully before and shall continue to do so. There is another important organization that I want to mention, which includes our undergraduate students. There is an exchange program between us and the Polytechnic University in Romania. With this exchange program, students visit universities for one week. They come to our university whilst our students also visit their universities, attend lectures, see laboratories and spend time there. This is of course an important international organization for us too.
As civil engineers, we are an integral part of our country's leading construction industry. When our students graduate, they can find many jobs in the private and public sector. Civil engineering is already a very fundamental engineering field, and today, civil engineering is actually “civilization” engineering. So when we look at it from this perspective, wherever civilization goes, we see civil engineers and their works. Civil engineers design all underground and over ground structures, highways, railways, tunnels, airports, train stations, ports, dams, thermal power plants, and power plants. They know the mechanical properties of the materials required to build these structures very well. For example, they can also perform the necessary inspections during and after the construction of concrete, wood, steel floors and all kinds of buildings. Civil engineers are also responsible for the successful execution of these projects. Therefore, our graduates have the chance to find jobs in many fields that are directly or indirectly related to the construction industry. There is another thing I’d like to talk about. Today's requirements in these fields and civil engineering push engineers to specialize. For this reason, civil engineers can work in many different jobs in these areas by specializing in subjects such as geotechnics, construction and building management. I have been in this business for years as a faculty member. I also took courses from this department as a student. As a student, I do not know what my answer would be, but when I think as a lecturer, I do not think that these lessons are actually difficult. Because every course at the undergraduate level is planned out in a certain way that makes it easy for any student who passed the university exam successfully. If the student attends the courses, listens carefully, studies regularly, takes the time to do his homework and projects, he can pass any course with very good grades. But I do have a few observations about students' difficulties. I would like to share them. Especially in the first year of the university, as the students complete a long exam marathon; they can be a little too comfortable whilst taking the courses. The effects of this can create problems in the future courses. Also, students from other cities may have trouble getting used to living in a new city. These are usually problems that can be resolved at the end of the first term. However, if this process is prolonged, our students may have trouble in their later studies. How do we support our students then? We organize orientation meetings for our new students, and if possible, we introduce them to their peers from the senior grades. If the student faces a difficulty in a course, they can speak with the lecturer and request additional support. Apart from that, there are advisors who are appointed by the department head for each student. When they have a problem, they can talk to them and ask for support. When they have even bigger problems, our university's psychological support services are always there for them. We are looking forward to welcoming students who want to become civil engineers in our department. Their professional lives will take a lot of their time, and university is just the beginning of this. Our students should always strive to improve themselves in courses they take at school and in their spare time outside of school. For this, they need to aim to graduate from the department with proper engineering knowledge, improve their foreign language skills, and work on their communication skills. It is also necessary to make the best use of the internship period during their academic studies. We have a large number of graduates who graduated well equipped and are doing great work in the industry today. We look forward to our new students and aim to be stronger and more successful together with them. We are located in a very large and developing campus in Istanbul, the largest city of our country. Our faculty members are the best in terms of quality and quantity. Research assistants are doing great here. Our students can easily reach out to faculty members of all levels. There are no closed doors between us and our students. Any student who has ideas, questions or problems can always contact us. I believe this to be one of the strengths of our department. We carry out many national and international projects in the department. We always want to see our enthusiastic students in projects we carry out, such as the one we carry out with the European Union, Public-University Cooperation, and the TÜBİTAK Project. Our campus is a green campus next to the Küçükçekmece Lake, you can see it right now. Metrobus, which is an important means of transportation, is located right next to our campus. Our university also has dormitory facilities. Inside the campus there are different places such as banks, markets, photocopy shops and cafes that make life easier on campus. In addition, as far as I have observed, we have students from many different parts of our country and we gladly see that they spend their time in a very beautiful environment, hanging out together. Dear students, I wish success to everyone who will choose our university and department.