The Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey was started
back in the fifties with funding from the US government. It was supposed
to be a university where people from all over the Middle East could come
to further their educations. From the beginning, the language of
instruction at the University was English. In the seventies America stopped funding the
University and it is now fully a public University of Turkey. Now more
of the students come from Turkey and fewer are coming from abroad. In
1995 an International Summer School was started to bring more
international students to the campus. My study in Turkey was financed
by a scholarship from the National
Security Education Program
The International Summer School
I chose Sociology of the Middle East and Economic History of Turkey
as my
courses for the summer. Also, for those students with no background in
Turkish, a language class was compulsory. In addition to the classes we
took, there were excursions planned for every weekend during the summer.
Throughout the six weeks there was never a dull moment. For me, the
challenge for the summer was balancing the academics, sight-seeing, and
socializing.
The City
Ankara is the governmental capital of Turkey while Istanbul is the
cultural capital and the better-known of the two. I believe the city of
Ankara has a population of about three or four million. It is hard to
measure because many people are moving in from the east every day and many
of them end up in gecekondu's (built at night). The city offers a number
of historic sites to see and is a nice place to get away from the
tourists that invade the west coast every summer.
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