FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES

MESSAGE OF THE DEAN

Dear Students,

I wish you a happy, healthy and successful academic year and congratulate all freshmen for their success in the University Entrance Examination.

New colleagues joined the Faculty. I expect that this will continue in the next semester. Thus the diversity and richness of our programs will increase and you will have more choice.

Talking of programs now we have two new undergraduate programs: Political Science and International Trade. Thus the number of programs in our faculty increased to five.

Another important development is the acceptance of freshmen students to faculty instead of programs. Now students will decide which program they want to follow in the beginning of their sophomore year. We hope that with more information after studying one year, your choices will be better for you. The usual rules and regulations for transferring between programs in case of a change of heart at a later date are still valid.

In a rapidly changing world expectations of educational outcomes are also changing to a certain degree. The labor needs of businesses have had been undergoing some structural changes in an environment where the supply of information is increasing and getting easier and relatively cheaper to obtain. Some recent research shows that the labor market at some stage of economic development favors university graduates who had a multi-disciplinary education more than those specialized in a narrow discipline. Furthermore it is expected that university education should help students to obtain skills such as problem solving, work discipline, team work, creativity and innovation rather than giving them large amount of knowledge. The leading universities all over the world are aware of this and update their curriculums accordingly. Işık University and our Faculty are aiming to provide an undergraduate education with a wide scope and solid academic foundations, responding to the needs of a changing world. The double major and minor programs and common courses offered  to all students in the Faculty either as electives or required courses provide you with a good opportunity of undertaking multidisciplinary work.

The interaction and cohesion between faculty, students and staff are essential for the success of an educational institution. Each group has rights as well as responsibilities. Some of your responsibilities are not only to attend lectures and study but also your participation in academic activities, to demand more in the lectures, to spend time on course evaluations, to assist in the development of advisory system, to participate in extra curricular activities. The advisory system seems to be more efficient this year. It seems that you have more interaction with your advisors. On the other hand the same can not be said of the course and instructor evaluations. Your participation in this process significantly increased last year, though it is still limited. I hope this will improve with time.

Some of you are not familiar with the university rules and regulations. We do not expect you to become experts, but to have at least some idea about them. This will you save you lots of time and energy.

You know the bottlenecks in the Turkish education system very well. Today your being here is a great opportunity. You have to make a good use of this opportunity for your sake and family and society’s benefit. Your active participation will help you and us in reaching our objectives.

Prof. Mehmet Kaytaz