Istanbul Technical University - ITU
speciality: Computer Science

I believe the main strength of the ITU is its massive alumni & student groups. Having a good reputation, the school can have massive opportunities for your career ahead. Education is generally tough love, you learn a lot, but it’s challenging, of course. Being a large school, you get to meet lots of new people & participate activities with.

So, what about the education?
The school has an optional English prep year. It can be on the easier side compared to other places. One with medium-good language skills could pass without studying intensely.

Then you have common classes across all programs, generally in large amphis with over 100 people, pretty standard. But passing them with good grades is no trivial task. A general downside for the Computer Engineering was the lack of resources, for example; we used to have computer lab classes with hands-on C coding, which was no longer available because of the crowdedness.

On the 3rd & 4th year, you will have the most focused classes. The school will be most demanding this time. However the projects I built during these years helped me unlock new business opportunities in my career. One major downside was the selection of courses, you could end up with a course you don’t want, sadly. Another problem was that If you fail on one particular class, it might break a whole chain & end up destroying your entire semester & year. The school was not offering a good amount of summer classes, so it’s common to graduate 1,2 years late in some cases.

You also need to have 2 internships before graduation & complete a graduation project in the final year. The Computer Engineering program has a lot of focus on the AI, so it’s easy to find someone start working in a good project, which will potentially get you hired. This also teaches real world skills about project management & communication.

Campus
ITU has one of the largest campus areas in Istanbul. Forest in the Maslak Campus is beautiful with lots of green & occasional animals. And the campuses in Taksim offers a good central location with easy reach to other campuses.

Activities
There are many active student groups within ITU, larger ones I see are generally career-focused, such as IEEE. However it is easy to find different groups with niches such as Role playing, Ultimate Frisbee, gastronomy. By using the name of the school only, student groups can organize events in the most prestigious locations. To my knowledge, there is not a good amount of funding, but finding sponsorship deals for the activities is another task for the students, which can help them create connections in companies. I know many people who end up working in said companies after school!

Accommodation
The school offers variety of accommoation types for different budgets in nearly all campuses. However, it’s safe to say not enough in capacity. Accommodation in Istanbul is a big & expensive problem, so I don’t see it being resolved anytime soon. Luckily for me, I got to stay in The Gölet, which was extremely pleasing, although being in similar price range with renting & sharing a home in 4.Levent. You get good internet connection, and easy access to campus. But it’s not possible have friends over.

In as much as Education is the primary goal or reason for attending this university, i have always wanted a place where i can feel inclusive, like Daniel should do this or Daniel can do this. I found that here. Great University

Students studying in Istanbul Technical University are provided with many social opportunities where they can engage with each other, whilst building strong networks and developing themselves. There are many different student associations ranging in various disciplines.

ITU’s welcoming student community with its continuous activities, numerous clubs, and helpful people turned this university into a second home to me. It helped me make new friends and offered me a place that feels like home despite not even being Turkish in the first place! As for studies, I am enjoying my major (computer engineering) and I feel like what I’m learning in classes is really valuable. Downside: sometimes it is really hard to reach faculty and administration members

Although I do not have the chance to experience the campus live due to online education, I can say that it is 5 stars with many committees and clubs as well as with their preparatory education. I am very happy to be here.

Among other free universities in Turkey, it’s a prestigious and all-around good one. I would recommend it to students with many interests and an open mind to acquire more. Academically, my faculty has failed to meet my -not so high- expectations but that stems from my own lack of ambition and interest in my studies.