Priorities:Boğaziçi University Student Priorities
Contents
- 1 STUDENT PRIORITIES COHORT 2022
- 2 STUDENT PRIORITIES COHORT 2020
- 3 STUDENT PRIORITIES COHORT 2019
- 4 Related Links
STUDENT PRIORITIES COHORT 2022
STRATEGY #1: CAREER MENTORING AMONG STUDENTS
Project: BUmentor
Person In Charge: Kumsal Belin
Project Details
BUmentor is a student counseling project between prep and 1st grades and 3rd and 4th grades. This project is based on senior students mentoring new entry students about their experiences such as classes, Erasmus, careers, internships, and clubs. One of the aims here is to adapt new students to the school as much as possible and to create career awareness. So, how will this program work?
- Students will be matched based on their interests, personality tests, goals, and departments but the goals and department criteria will be considered first.
- Afterward, the mentees and mentors will have a zoom meeting at a time they have determined. If they wish, those who are matched can also meet face to face.
- The meetings will be shaped according to the needs and questions of the mentees, but they can also just chat. The content is a little more up to the mentee and mentor.
- The google forms surveys will be sent to both the mentor and the mentee to follow up on the meetings. They will also be able to rate how satisfied they are with each other.
- At the same time, an event will be organized once a month where all mentees and mentors can come together.
- For new students to get to know a lot of people, their mentors will be changed in each academic semester. Those who want to continue with the same mentor will be considered.
- The aim here is for students to ask their questions to people who have just gained experience and to make friends.
- Mentors and mentees are more likely to be friends because their ages are close to each other. For this reason, we prefer mentors and mentees to become friends so that new students can ask about their career goals and school-related problems without hesitation.
STRATEGY #2: INCREASING I&E AWARENESS AMONG HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Project: extremeDesign - Entrepreneurship Summer School
Person In Charge: Eren Anter
Project Details
"Opportunities don't happen, you create them."
-Chris Grosser
The sooner, the better! Since creating opportunities during your journey is essential, we believe that our career, and therefore our career plans, and our awareness of entrepreneurship were and should have been formed at least in high school. However, very few of our friends have awareness about change-making, entrepreneurship, and basic experience.
As members of the Stanford University UIF Boğaziçi University team, we thought about how we can reach high school students who have an entrepreneurial spirit, and how we can increase their awareness, knowledge, and experience on this subject. And we found something new that will not only allow us to reach high school students but also prompt us to take steps to address lack of institutional resources about I&E: extremeDesign Summer School.
extremeDesign is a 2-stage training program. The first stage of the program is theoretical training. In this part of the program, we will proceed with a focus on sharing and we will try to support the participants with additional resources, and this attitude will continue in every part of the theoretical training. Likewise, we need to convey that the theoretical education will progress together with the practices. At this stage, we can say that the program of our university friends and the programs of our high school friends are quite different from each other as it is needed. The contents of both theoretical education and practice program are like following.
Theoretical and Practical Education
- Basic Skills Course: We found that our high school fellows, especially those who do not already have experience, often do not have the basic competencies to develop a project, and we wanted to give them a specially designed crash course on this subject instead of pulling them out as many other training programs do.
- Design Thinking Course: We will open this course to both our high school friends and our university friends. You can think of this part of the training as an accelerated and condensed version of the Fire Up Changemakers program. We plan to teach the Problem Defining/HMW techniques to the participants at the beginning of the process, and then to transfer the Brainstorming and Prototyping techniques to the participants. Participants will be supported at every stage of Design Thinking with practices and assignments as in Fire Up.
- Extreme Design Challenge Courses: Challenges will consist of real life case studies for high school students, and real problems that require engineering knowledge for college students. In this part of the program, the teams have already been determined and they will receive training and consultancy on the topics we think are necessary for their own challenges.
- Entrepreneurship 101: We think that this is very important at the beginning of the program. In particular, we predict that entrepreneurship education in the theoretical sense, having a good command of entrepreneurship stories and entrepreneurship concepts will make serious contributions to the participants throughout the process.
Extreme Design Challenges
- At this stage, it would not be wrong to say that the challenges of high school and university students on this issue are very different from each other. High school students will deal with real cases and real solutions that will be requested from institutions that are suitable for their level and that are experts in their fields. University students, on the other hand, will progress through real problems that will require interdisciplinary work, good teamwork and research. For example, they will try to solve the irrigation problem in a field in Istanbul, or they will try to reduce health expenditures in a disadvantaged region, while trying to improve the quality of health care. High school students will present their projects to relevant institutions or professionals. However, university students will be focused on prototype production, which will require advanced creativity and collaboration. In the project development process, high school students will have the opportunity to gain internships from relevant institutions, while university students will be able to benefit from all the opportunities of Boğaziçi University Entrepreneurship Center if they are successful in their projects.
STRATEGY #3: BUILDING A SECOND LANGUAGE SPEAKING & CULTURE COMMUNITY
Core Project: Spanish Speaking Community (ESPComunidad)
Person in Charge: Furkan Varol
Project Details
- From the motto 'think big, start small, work fast and do something everyday to advance', the project will take its start from a very core group of people who learn Spanish as a second foreign language at Bogazici University.
- The first activities will be focused on enhancing speaking ability in Spanish through coffee talks in cafés.
- Modern Language Unit at Bogazici and Cervates Institutes are tought to be the first two stakeholders of the project. The following of the project will be assisted by
- As the community gets bigger, activities done by the ESPComunidad will be diversified.
| Activity Name | Occurence Time | Definition | Aim | Possible Stakeholder and Partners |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coffee Talks | Within 1 Month | It is a inter-level speaking activity with peers which is held preiodically. | Break the ice to speak confidently | Guidence of Spanish professors at Bogazici University |
| Turco-Español language exchange | Within 1 month | One to one matching meeting with erasmus and peers. | Gether students from Erasmus who want to learn Turkish with peers who learn spanish | ESN and personal networks
Galatasaray University Erasmus students |
| Night Espana
Fiesta |
Within 1 Month | To have fun and interact with non-speakers but who are interested in spanish music and fiestas are welcome. | Interact with others to have more fun and build networks in order to retain a bigger impact. | BUMK (Music Club) |
| Spanish Karaoke Night | Within 2 Months | With the ones who like to sing out loud, there will be a karaoke night, the ones who are less willing to sing will be encouraged. | Music is one of the major components to get familiar with the language. Music has a good affect on creation of a team spirit. | Kahverengi Cafe(if more than 10 people)
Fun Crown (if up to 4 people) |
| Films Espana | Within 3 Months | Diving into the Spanish filmography, documentaries and series. | To get connected with non-speaker spanish culture enthusiasors. | Mithad Alam Film Center and SineBu |
| Spanish Debates | Within 3 months | There will be some specific topics and in advance there will be debating groups selecting one side of the debate and get prepared for the debate. The conclusions will be published in the social media accounts of the community. | Having arguments on specific topics is really good way to start to think from the percepective of the target lanaguage. | bogaziciMUN, personal networks |
| Spanish Gastronomy | Within 4 Months | Learning the tastes of some spanish dishes. It is also planned to learn how to cook a spanish dish. | To immerse into spanish culture in depth |
BuGUSTO(Gastronomy Club) |
| Learn Spanish Podcasts and Education | Within 6 Months | Voluntarily designed podcast series to learn spanish, creating contents on podcast platforms under the guidence of Modern Language Unit and Cervantes Institute and provide elementary learning materials in Spanish for students in secondary and highschools who learn Spanish as a second foreign language. | To provide contents that are designed for students in private schools who choose to learn Spanish in Istanbul | MEF okulları
TED Rönesans Koleji TED İstanbul |
| Travel With Natives | Within 8 Months | The essential part of learning Spanish is to be able to communicate in Spanish to make native friends | To gain confidence in getting in contact with natives and have friends. | ESNBogazici |
| Travel | Within 12 Months | Barcelona and Madrid Travels with limited budget and staying hostels. | To have to speak Spanish and be immersed into cultures | Embassy of Spain, Consulate General, Couchsurfing, Ryanair |
STRATEGY #4: DEVELOPING STUDENTS' ENTREPRENEURAL COMPETENCES WİTH A COMPACT TARINING
Project: Boğaziçi University Entrepreneurship School
Person in Charge: Erdoğan Kocabaş
Project Details
Students who just start university feel the lack of certain competencies due to education systems' focusing unreal topics instead of developing students' real life skills. With the deficency of these, they suffer in not only academic issues but also business experiences. For instance, most of Turkish students graduate from high school without making a teamwork properly. Our project's main focus is developing these skillsets from very beging to high levels. We will do it with some layers which are 101, 201 and 301.
101 layer: In this layer, students will gain competencies such as presentation techniques, research methods, technology, information and health literacy that everyone should have. Thus, whether they prefer entrepreneurship as a career goal or not, they will be able to think critically and make their own decisions.
201 layer: At this stage students will learn about specific business areas after general education at 101. For example, after receiving general information from experts and academics in the fields of blockchain, fintech, social entrepreneurship or artificial intelligence, they will choose a vertical and gain technical equipment. The field they chose will be the field where they will form a team and develop a project with other students who have chosen the same field.
301 layer: In this last layer, students will receive mentorship from their chosen role models that have made an impact in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, and will do internships at institutions such as civil society and startups with which we cooperate in order to better see the opportunities in the field. In addition, it will be better equipped by choosing the appropriate ones from a training package consisting of niche areas such as language and software. For example, if the biggest market in the industry where he developed a project is in China, he will learn basic Chinese.
At the end of 1 year training, we will be expecting some specific projects from teams and provide network and sponsorship support. We hope different projects from different areas' being launched thanks to training.
STUDENT PRIORITIES COHORT 2020
STRATEGY #1: TRAINING MORE ENTREPRENEURS
Project: Training BUnnovation
Person in Charge: Osman Oğuz Nuhoğlu
Project Details
In our school, there is a lack of theoretical education on innovation and entrepreneurship.
This project aims to improve students' knowledge of innovation and entrepreneurship. There will be classes (seminars) every week. Different instructors from different fields will teach a lesson about that week's topic. For example, a professor of psychology will explain the mindset of an entrepreneur or there will be an affective presentation conference from the human resources department.
We will also create a community from this program. This program may be integrated with another program in our school (Fire Up program). That is, this program may be the prerequisite of Fire Up program. This program will require a selection of students because there are a lot of students interested in entrepreneurship and innovation in Boğaziçi University.
STRATEGY #2: IMPROVING SOCIAL INOVATION ECOSYSTEM
Project: BUmpact
Person in Charge: Zişan Özdemir
Project Details
Social innovation is a wide range concept which covers the environmental, economic and social topics and is one of the concepts thrown out of focus in our university. There is no unity at that point, entities are working separately and students are not informed and involved enough.
BUmpact is an social innovation community which brings the relevant entities and interested students and faculty members together. It's a medium for those to brainstorm and collaborate. The aim is also to make people aware and make them motivated to take part in solving global issues. Within the scope of BUmpact, there will be also sub-communities (like working groups) focusing on different SDG groups.
- Poverty Eradication
- Food Security / Sustainable Agriculture
- Water and Sanitation
- Employment, Decent Work and Social Protection
- Youth and Education
- Health and Population Dynamics
- Sustained and Inclusive Economic Growth
- Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change (e.g.Renewable energy, responsible consumption and production)
- Human Rights
- Reduced Inequalities (social equality, gender equality and women rights)
- Policy and Governance
- Sustainable Cities and Transportation
STRATEGY #3: ORGANISE EVENTS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS' SKILLS
Project: BUact
Person in Charge: Arda Ulutürk
Project Details
In Bogazici University, there are lots of people who aim to create or design something. However, sometimes they don't know how they can start and how they should act in the team process.Therefore, it is significant to give them chance to try their skills in the real life. For that reason, hackatons and activities can be significant solution. In the real-time application which is BUact, students can find appropriate hackatons for them and join easily. Every week, they can differant hackaton which is organised by leading companies. Thanks to that, they can act in different industries.
Moreover, students can join the design-thinking and brainstorming activities to learn some crucial techniques. According to interwiev made by students, we realized that students need them these skills to accelerate the project design. This courses can be given by DreamBu Inovation Center. Thus, DreamBu can make the first spart to create inovation culture in the campus.
STRATEGY #4: Connecting Different Disciplines and Roles
Project: coLab
Person in Charge: Haluk Ziya Tercan
Project Details
There is a theory like the following;
"Every science discipline feeds itself with many other disciplines. This is the key of scientific production."
The project coLab aims to use this theory in terms of innovation, and entrepreneurship. For this goal, coLab provides a communitiy which has three different sessions. These are;
- Learning Sessions - with the aim of learn new things together
- Brainstorming Sessions - with the aim of think together
- Interaction Sessions - with the aim of build together
In this project, the target participants are students, instructors, and staff of our school. We define this community as interdisciplinary and interroles. By the word of interroles, we mean the relationship between staff, instructors, and students. In this community, students is not only a student, the instructor is not only an insturctor, and the staff is not only a personel in school. They all are teammates who learn, think, and build together.
The system works like that;
- A topic about the community wants to learn is determined.
- If necessary a guest is invited, and the Learning Session starts. Insturctors, students, and staff leran together.
- A week after Learning Session, a nwe topic related to Learning Session's topic is determined. This new topic should be about a problem.
- After the topic is determined, participants think, and debate about the possible solutions.
- In the third week, participants make a prototype about the idea which was determined in the Brainstorming Session last week.
- After a presentation to the related instutuions the project is started to apply if it is applicable.
The main target of coLab for students is giving them the opportunity to experience of design-thinking with different role groups. For the instructors, and staff, it gives the opportunity to work on different projects out of their main field.
STUDENT PRIORITIES COHORT 2019
STRATEGY #1: IMPROVING SOCIAL INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
Project: Bright Pitching Day
Person in Charge: Berkay Kani
Project Details
One of the biggest problems of the students in our school is to hesitate to express their ideas. This is because people despise them or steal their ideas. As people with the entrepreneurship mindset, we believe that sharing will always strengthen ideas.
I designed the Pitching Day event for this. There will be 5 teams, audince and 3 successful juries. We will share an application form for selection of teams using our communication channels. For the event, 3 successful startup co-founders will be contacted and asked to be a jury. The event will be advertised for participants from our communication channels. The event will be in the center's office on our main campus. There will be a 30-minute networking session before the event starts. Here, the owners, the participants and the juries will have the chance to meet. Idea owners will write the type of people they need on a whiteboard. There will be a 5 minute presentation and 5 minute question and answer session in front of the juries. After the presentations are over, participants will be able to talk to them to join their teams.
We will provide office and entrepreneurship training to the 2 winning teams.
STRATEGY #2: CREATING FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR SELECTED STARTUPS
Project: Bright Demo Day
Person in Charge: Berkay Kani
Project Details
Entrepreneurs often face financial problems while expanding their startups. In some times, things cannot be done and solved without money.
Teams selected to work in our incubation center are also experiencing this problem. So I designed the Bright Demo Day event to solve the investment problem of these startups. At this event, there will be teams who selected in Pitching Day and who completed entrepreneurship training in our incubation center. Using the network of Entrepreneurship Center, 3 seed investors will be contacted and offered to be a jury in the event. Then 5 teams will be selected to make presentations in front of the investors. The teams will tell the investors their products, ask for a certain amount of investment and try to convince the investors to make this investment. In fact, the event is similar to the Shark Tank event. Teams that can convince investors will receive investment and will have the opportunity to grow their startups further.
STRATEGY #3: TRAINING MORE ENTREPRENEURS
Project: Bright Experience
Person in Charge: Fatih Gözükara
Project Details
There is too much event on entrepreneurship but not enough entrepreneurs. In order to train more entrepreneurs, we need to work more to the point than general events. For this, we have designed an experience-oriented, beginning-to-end process that will have a good story for all of us at the end of the day.
BRIGHT EXPERIENCE
STRATEGY #4: SOLVING PROBLEMS THAT DISCOURAGES PEOPLE TO BE ENTERPRENEUR
Project: Design Thinking Workshop
Person in Charge: Elanur Gayıp
Project Details
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