Welcome to the second part of our story about our experiences at the "Delightful Istanbul 2024" Summer School. Catch up on Part 1 here if you haven't seen it and read on!

Aydın University. Photo courtesy of the authors

The university

We visited Aydın University in Istanbul. It’s a young (established in 2003) private university.

The university boasts a wide range of departments and programs, offering courses in both Turkish and English. It also has a large Techno-center, which houses various labs. We got a tour of the prosthetics and automotive labs during our visit. The genetics students even got to experiment in the genetics lab during their classes.

The university campus, where the Summer School took place, is located in the Florya district. The closest public transport stop is the Beşyol metrobus stop. It’s a pretty quiet student area on the European side of Istanbul. Getting to the city center and most of the tourist attractions takes about an hour by public transport.

The campus is huge. It has several buildings, a library, cafes, canteens, a large conference hall, sports halls, and much more. All the buildings are new and the classrooms are well-equipped. Basically, everything you need for study and more is there!

About the program

The program fee covered: accommodation (with breakfast), classes, and even two tours (a boat tour and a tour of the historical peninsula). We had several courses to choose from — 10 in total! Four were from the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, two from the Medical Faculty, and one from the Engineering Faculty. There were also unique courses like Turkish Language, Exploration of Turkish Art via Museums, and The Taste of Istanbul and Anatolian Food Culture (Gastronomy and Culinary Arts). We opted for Brand Management (Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences) because it aligned perfectly with our studies at ITMO University and our current work.

Classes started at 9 am and went on until 3 pm. We had a lunch break from 12 am to 1 pm, and our professor was super understanding; he even threw in some coffee breaks whenever he saw that we were getting tired. Everything was taught in English, which we were a bit nervous about at first. But actually, we understood everyone perfectly, and everyone understood us. The classes were very interactive with a lot of practice and teamwork. We got to connect with students from all over the world!

We had a midterm at the end of the first week and a final presentation day, where we presented our work. This was an online day because we had already all gone back to our countries. It was a bit strange at first, but it actually gave us more time to prepare. We received a grade for the course, which counted for 6 ECTS and can be transferred to our home university.

Actually, the program wasn't just about academics. We had the option of taking tours, which cost about 30 euros on average. We decided to skip most of them (except for the final gala dinner) and explore the city on our own. However, if you're the type who likes everything planned and organized, there were plenty of options to choose from.

The A-team (more about them later) also organized some great ice-breaking activities and chit-chats. We had a national clothes day and country presentations. For our country presentation, we sang a song from The Town Musicians of Bremen (with the help of our Latvian and Polish friends) and danced a polka with our Polish friend as well. It was so much fun to learn about different cultures. People presented dances, songs, and the Mexican students even brought sweets!

Overall, it was a busy but very exciting program. You could easily just take tours and participate in all the activities, and still have no free time!

Who are our new friends?

Over the course of two weeks, we were lucky enough to communicate with students from completely different countries, such as Pakistan, Germany, Mexico, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Latvia and others, and even make friends with whom we still keep in touch. There were about 200 students in total. Together we went on excursions, came up with our own routes to explore the area, sat by the pool in the evenings, laughed a lot and, of course, worked in groups on educational projects. We communicated exclusively in English until we met other Russian-speaking students. Communicating with them was a moral support when we were afraid that our vocabulary wasn't good enough and added more topics for conversation, but that didn't stop us from getting to know other fellow students from all over the world. The main thing to remember is that you can significantly improve your English here and take advantage of this opportunity!

In addition to the exchange students, we met the delightful members of the A-team — a group of buddy students who helped with all the organizational aspects, from arriving at the airport and checking into the hotel to friendly walks to the bar. They also responsibly organized excursions, took pictures at events, took care of us and just shared pleasant moments with us and came up with activities for free evenings, for example, a presentation of countries where we talked about our own and learned about the culture of different nationalities. It was a pleasure to meet all of them.

Stay tuned for the third and final part of our story!

Written by Mariia Tereshina and Alina Gadieva