Sociology

Hello, I am Professor Dr Lütfü SUNAR, Head of the Department of Sociology. The Department of Sociology, as a newly structured department, is a department that has easily adapted contemporary developments in sociology education and sociological research. In our university, as in all universities, the first year of the sociology department is mostly university courses and general introductory courses. Subsequently, departments shape their lesson plans according to their own approaches. We endeavour to include courses that bring social issues to the student's agenda more. In this sense, our lesson plan, including the courses in this first year, consists of about 30 per cent theory and history courses. Approximately 20% consists of methodology courses. The remaining courses are elective courses in which many issues and various problems in the social field are addressed. Students studying in the Department of Sociology are subjected to an internship programme from the third to the fourth year. They have to do an internship. We want them to do this internship in the fields that they have learnt so far and that they may encounter when applying sociology to life. In addition to this, for two semesters in the fourth year, our department students prepare a graduation thesis or a graduation assignment. We want them to empirically apply the theoretical, methodological and conceptual knowledge they have learned in the company of an advisor to a social problem. Thus, we aim to both gain and test the ability to transform the knowledge they have gained in the sociology department into a written acquis before graduation. Today, it is very important for any department in Turkey and the world to have international relations and communication. In this sense, when we think of foreign education opportunities, of course, the ERASMUS exchange programme comes to mind first. As a department, we have agreements with various universities from different countries. Within the scope of the ERASMUS exchange programme, we enable our students to spend one or two semesters abroad at the university we have an agreement with. The department of sociology has an extraordinary richness in terms of both social activities and academic activities. In this respect, we have a club in the sociology department. This club carries out many activities within itself. But in addition to this, we organise an academic event or a social event almost every week in the sociology department. The events we organise are held weekly with different qualities under various titles such as the middle of the book, sociological conferences and research agenda. In addition, within the scope of the social structure research programme related to our department, we organise a social structure research workshop once a year. This year we will organise the fifth one. This is an academic event where a large number of academics from Turkey and the world come and participate and contribute within the framework of the theme determined that year. We also publish the outputs of this event as an academic publication. We also organise a postgraduate summer school for graduate students in Turkey. In this summer school, we mainly focus on the methods and methodologies to be used in social structure research. In this sense, when we look at the events organised by the Department of Sociology throughout the year, we organise about 40 events every year. This, of course, gives our students the opportunity to benefit not only from their own professors but also from the entire academic acquis in Turkey with an extraordinary richness.