Studying at EGE University as an Erasmus

There's much to say about EGE Üniversitesi - to start, it has roughly 47.500 students and the campus is one of the biggest I've ever seen. From the Students Village (the dormitory) where I live, inside the campus, takes about 15 minutes walking to reach the Dentistry Faculty. And that's only about a third of the campus! - it has about 370 hectares (3,45 square kilometers, with is bigger than Monaco!) and includes several facilities such has culture, sport and social services. There are huge empty spaces and free terrain throughout the campus, some with grass and trees, others just with dirt.

One of the many gardens at the campus - all credits to Sara Silva

The campus fountain

Ege University has eleven faculties (administrative and social sciences; agriculture; communication; dentistry; education; engineering; letters; medicine; natural sciences; pharmacology; and water products), a conservatory of Turkish music, eight vocational schools, and seven research institutes - but it keeps growing. In the dentistry faculty they are in the middle of constructing a building and started to build another one from scratch just last week - due on November 2014, seems like I won't be there to see it! It seems like everywhere I go there is a new building in construction, coffee-shops and sport fields, it's a place bubbling with life.

The rectorate building

And abandoned gas station in the campus, used as a parking space!

Unfortunately things don't work as they should - for Erasmus students of course. Several persons are complaining about classes that were said to be taught in English, but turns out they are in Turkish... because the teachers say the other students don't have enough preparation (in the Psychology and Chemical Engineering courses). In my faculty, since we are 4 erasmus, we have private lessons in English - no complaints about that, on the contrary, just has I said in my previous post. The problem is, the Erasmus students came to this faculty thinking that they had classes in a language they could understand, and that isn't happening with the vast majority of students I have spoken with. And you might understand how frustrating that can be if you came here with a purpose. Of course we are all here for different reasons, but one of them is to learn, nobody wants to go home with a list of failed subjects, having to repeat the year.

The dentistry faculty

Several situations occur, from not having classes in English, subjects present on the Learning Agreement not opening (in the Business Administration Faculty), persons that came to an Erasmus Placement, a kind of an internship, in August and only begun to work (and not much) in October (in the Agriculture Faculty), etc, etc. The teachers simply don't demand much from you, and it seems like they don't care much too.

Talking about the Diş Hekimliği Fakültesi, where I study - I can only classify the organization as mediocre. We are really well received by the professors and I'm delighted to see new procedures that I never saw before. But the problems lies here - see procedures - not doing much. This because they don't ever attribute a workstation to us - which is essential if you are studying dentistry. When we asked the Erasmus coordinator about this situation we got the response - "You cannot work! You're not a student from this faculty, there are laws that have to be followed! Besides there aren't enough dentist chairs for everyone, we're full!". Hello? Of course I have to work, and legally I AM a student of the faculty for this semester! What amazed me the most was her shocked face while saying this, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Well, I don't mean to offend sensibilities but if they can't handle the newcomers why receive Erasmus in the first place? In my faculty we don't accept students if we don't have the conditions - as simple as that.

Of course we work anyways - but we have to be hovering all the day around the teachers to remind them that we are there, and constantly asking for some work. And I hate having to "beg" for something that should have been given to me without asking. To get around the faculty is kind of funny, since every two weeks we have new subjects, we have to go to each department and introduce ourselves to the staff, and it's dramatically delightful to see their confused faces clearly thinking "what are we going to do with them?"

Of course I don't know if things go this way in all the faculties, I've written only about those that I know. Besides, you can always count on the lady from the international office - Şule Begüm - to help you when you need, she's really nice and a lifesaver.

To conclude, if you want to have a really good time in a good place with excellent people come to Ege, but if you want to work and actually learn something think better, because you won't be satisfied here.