Bilkent Exchange

Why Bilkent?

Bilkent University is ideally suited to students and faculty interested in studying, teaching or conducting research in Turkey. It is an English-language university. Courses, with very few exceptions (Turkish literature for example) are taught in English. Turkish is, however, not that difficult to learn and Bilkent offers free Turkish language instruction to visiting faculty and students.

The university’s campus is styled after American campuses. Much at Bilkent will seem familiar to students from CWRU. The campus forms the center of an extended community of residences, shopping malls, and recreation facilities. If you are not adventurous you need not leave the confines of the Bilkent community – but that should not be the case. There is much to see and experience in the world outside the campus.

Its home city, Ankara, is the capital of the Turkish Republic. With a population of nearly 5 million, Ankara is an open, accessible, city. As the capital, it is the home to embassies and a large international population. Ankara is only twenty minutes, by free shuttle bus, from the Bilkent campus. Beyond that, Ankara is well connected by air, rail, and bus to almost any destination one might desire to visit in Turkey.

Most important, Bilkent University is regarded as one of the best universities in the Middle East and Turkey. It has the finest university library in Turkey. Its faculty and student body are international. Its programs in the sciences, engineering and humanities attract some of the best faculty and students in the region. It, for example, offers outstanding opportunities to study modern international relations; Ottoman and Middle Eastern History, and archaeology. Its programs in engineering and the sciences are internationally recognized. Take the opportunity to check the academic credentials of this small sampling of Bilkent’s faculty: