Fellow:Furkan Varol


Name Furkan Varol School (Cohort) Boğaziçi University (2022 cohort) Majoring in International Trade Country Turkey Email Special:EmailUser/Varolfurkan2

Bio

We have something to learn from any being in life, but for me, the most precious and magical thing is the acquisition of others’ information that’s retained from their experience. Since childhood, I was a very curious kid asking my parents about any interesting thing that encountered and nothing changed when I grow up. My parents were replaced by searching on the internet and strangers that I believe they’ve got the answer namely professors, writers, philosophers, scientists, and, of course, locals that I encounter on my journeys.

At first glance, it might seem it doesn’t worth mentioning ‘locals’ in this order but I firmly believe that being present in a brand new place that you have never been in is like being born again. This time you have facilitators of communication, the language, but nothing more. The locals or the materials you read, watch or listened to are your guide to experience the ‘place’ with eyes fully open, with curiosity. It is the source of inspiration to build yourself in any combination of paths you want to follow in other words creating your way.

That’s why I am on my way to selecting different paths to follow. When I was in high school I have never been away from my hometown for a long time. I started to investigate the instances that characterized the city in history. The forgotten ones were very attractive to me, and as an assistant to my high school history teacher Füsun Genç I started to investigate earthquakes and fires that occurred in my hometown for 2 years and our articles were accepted in Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey.

In the first path of the middle of adolescence, it was the professors and the newspapers that I found to gather information about the instance I want to learn more. The second path came during my freshman year at university. The Covid-19 Pandemic locked all of us in houses and for me, there was a long summer ahead before the first year of university. The new adventures were calling me, I had to find a way to explore new things without even leaving the house so I started to read classical novels. In my entire life, I have never stayed physically inactive, so I also started to do yoga practices on YouTube, and take long walks in the forest near the house. It was the writers from whom I was fed during this time and my economics professor Mehtap Işık, she also suggested me many different books after the first academic year began for me.

I am still on the third path and it started with a 3-day Antalya trip to run a half marathon. I trained hard to be able to finish 21km without stopping. In addition to this, it was the first time I traveled so far from Istanbul. I liked the idea of attending an organization that involves physical activity and meanwhile traveling those places. Therefore I planned my next activity in the spring, I was going to attend a yoga retreat camp in Fethiye and I was expecting to learn how to do handstands. Unfortunately, it has been canceled the day before I hit the road. Anyways I didn’t cancel my trip and for the first time, I went to a place without any purpose, just to discover and all alone. In early June, my travels around Turkey started that way. I met with a yogi in Fethiye who lived in India for 2 years to learn the essence of yoga and now was turning back to his home country, France. Hanuman as he called himself taught me many concepts on traveling as well as yoga practices. From the inspiration I had from what he told me, I traveled to the southeastern part of Turkey, by myself. It was also my first time using an app called Couchsurfing which enables travelers to stay with locals for free. It was my thing, discovering new worlds under the guidance of locals and seeing new lifestyles in their place! Right now I want to focus on those trips and getting to know new people and see their lives to get inspiration for the next path I will follow!

Updates :

After I wrote this bio I have achieved several things that satisfy me and motivates me for the future to acomplish more and more things! Fistly, I really set up a Spanish Speaking Community namely Comunidad Hispana [1] within my university and we have organized activities weekly basis.[2] I led a very hardworking team to organize those events, I have never been alone in this journey. 5 strangers got together to achieve one common thing in our school and I am very proud to have each of them to make our dreams come true. From here I want to thank all the boardmembers of Comunidad Hispana![3]

Another new update is I think I am still on the last part of third phase I mentioned earlier. I am an excanghe student in Slovenia, Maribor. Although, it is a brand new experience to study abroad, it is a continuation of my passion of travelling and exploring new cultures and lifestyles. I have had the chance to travel throughout Central Europe and Spain in this period of my life for the first time, had many acquaintances through that voyages.

Our crowd-funding campaign to have financial support to attend the MeetUp at Stanford.

After being selected in UIF program, we had a very hard task as all fellows in Turkey: the travelling visa for the US and money to get there. The last week to the meetup we stil didn't know if we would get the visa on time. After the whole processI have never given up to get in touch with bureaucrats in Turkey and the U.S to tell our circumstances and even in these conditions how we are really focused to attend the MeetUp at Stanford. As two cohorts Bogazici and ITU, we were noticed that we are elligable to attain our visas in the last few days! But, how will we get that money within few days?! Flight tickets each person were so expensive, a monthly salary! We had to carry out campaigns to collect at least the flights and we were able to collect $4k in two days. Special thanks to Emine Çavak who works in the Alumni Association of Bogazici University [4] and fascilitates our connection with alumnis all over the U.S to support us to carry out this campaign.

Lastly, being a part of Entrepreneurship Center brought about organizing events apart from that of Comunidad Hispana. Through that organizations I got in touch with an entrepreneuer fellow student in my department and together we organized three activities regarding Minimalist Entrepreneurship and E-commerce. [5] As we got on very well, he offered me to be partners in his Digital Marketing Agency named Crensus and from him I recieved many trainings regarding building a website, managing paid social media ads, legal background of LLC and so on.. Now, I am Digital Marketing Consultant in Crensus and helping SMEs in Turkey to grow and be efficiently visiable on the internet.

Achievements

Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey's Competition 2nd and 3rd place in south Marmara region in 2016 and 2017.
A beginner solo backpacker.
Crafter of gourd lamps and I have a store on Etsy: vibeanatolia
Half marathon runner in Runtalya 2022
Coirmaster in the jazz choir of Boğaziçi University 2022-2023
Set up Comunidad Hispana
Organized events at Bright regarding Minimalist Entrepreneur