Department of Coach Training

I am Associate Professor Osman Ateş. I am the vice president of Istanbul University - Cerrahpaşa, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Department of Coaching Training. At the same time, I am working as the head of the Sports - Health Department. I myself am a former national athlete; I competed in the national team for many years. In fact, most of our professors in our department have a sports-related background. Likewise, some of them have competed in national teams. Our department staff consists of a professor, 5 associate professors, 2 doctoral lecturers, 1 lecturer and 2 research assistants. At the same time in our department, there are two departments of science. One of these is the Department of Movement and Training, another that I am the head of is the Sports Health Department. Students take many courses such as training, physiology, movement physiology, basic movement anatomy, and kinesiology. It’s a department that includes the basic courses that include fitness. The first courses that we offer in the Coaching Training Department are the courses such as basic physiology, basic anatomy, anatomy of movement, and kinesiology of movement. There are courses that focus on training planning, which aims to improve the performance of the athlete, and focus on training knowledge. As the Coaching Training Department, we have a laboratory. In this laboratory, our students, complete their thesis studies, and take their graduate, master’s and doctoral courses. Of course, this laboratory is highly developed, as we purchase new equipment every year as we conduct scientific studies, alongside the courses offered for the undergraduate and graduate students. Our incoming students can also use these laboratories for their scientific studies. One of the greatest advantages of our university is the fact that there are many internship opportunities. As the Coaching Training Department, our students, who take specialization courses in their field, find the opportunity to do internships in big sports clubs and fitness centers in Istanbul, related to their sports branches. Of course, this is the benefit of the social relations of our professors who are experts in their field and provide a great advantage to our students. The students of our university have to complete a graduation thesis. For the thesis, students have to complete the training applications, within a period of 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 weeks. These are called performance tests. We want them to understand the positive or negative effects these practices have on athletes or any sedentary individual, through small-scale studies they implement. We expect them to explain these studies to us in the form of a very short presentation. If the quality of the results obtained in study are good, they can present their work both in student congresses and in some scientific congresses.
Our school also is a part of the Farabi and Erasmus Programs. I also work as the Erasmus Coordinator in our school. There are some countries that our school has agreements with. Some of them are Spain, Germany, Poland, Czechia, Greece and finally Kosovo. Within the scope of the agreements we have made in these countries, our students apply to go to these countries. Taking advantage of the Erasmus opportunity after applying, they add an overseas experience to their lives. As for symposiums, we have not organized an event recently, but we are planning to do it soon. Some panels are held nationally in our school and some awards are given. We invite people to our school, athletes and sportsmen, trainers, coaches, and bring our students together with people with successful sports backgrounds. This way, they get the chance to meet them and get information. Since this place firstly is a Coaching Training Department, they have the chance to become a trainer by training in the field to become experts. Apart from that, there are opportunities to work as a conditioner in sports branches, as an athletic performance specialist. At the same time, due to the structure of our school, we also provide fitness expertise courses on football, basketball and swimming in the Coaching Training Department. We are one of the few universities that provides this fitness specialist courses in Turkey. Our students graduate very well equipped and have a great advantage in the sports sector. Because the expert courses we provide are taught by our highly qualified instructors who are experts in their fields. Therefore, our students can also improve themselves very well. Generally, the courses that students have difficulty in every Faculty of Sport Sciences is physiology, anatomy, kinesiology. After a while they understand that these basic courses are very important in understanding the training knowledge, which is the main subject of our studies. So the basis of the program is actually physiology, anatomy and kinesiology. By understanding these courses very well, you will better understand the basics of training knowledge, performance improvement and performance tests. We, as the Coaching Training Department, together with our instructors who have worked both outside and in the field on this subject, produce graduates who are well-equipped both in the field and knowledgeable in theory. It may be difficult to decide what would you like to do in the four five years after high school, but the students who will choose our department need to make a decision on this. When they graduate from the Faculty of Sports Sciences, do they want to be in the coaching, conditioning, training performance part of the job, or do they want to be in sports management, physical education teaching. They have to decide on this. If students are involved in a branch, in any team, they also have the opportunity to find new fields of interest as they can study many branches when they come here. Therefore, If they want to be a part of a team, a conditioner, performance specialist or coach in the future, they can easily choose our department. I always say this. A Faculty of Sport Sciences is located in almost every province in our country. However, our students from Istanbul University - Cerrahpaşa, Faculty of Sport Sciences receive a proper education where they can really become experts in their field. Most importantly, our professors help out our graduate students in terms of finding employment, thanks to their recognition in the field and their social networks. I think this makes for a very important advantage. We wish success to students who will come to our university, faculty and department.