CSC interviews enlightening the #ibmcsc turkey11 team on the state of education in Turkey

CSC Turkey 11 Team & Representatives of Host Organizations
Source: Kadir Has University

We began our assignment with TÜSİAD yesterday after a kick-off at the Kadir Has University. Our colleagues at TÜSİAD, Ebru Hanım, Yasemin Hanım, İpek Hanım, Deniz Hanım and Ezgi Hanım (Hanim is a respectful honorific added to women’s first names in Turkey) have been extremely welcoming and forthcoming with information as have been our interviewees. We are also interviewing other experts and program contacts in the STEM area, and are looking forward to participating in a conference on the subject sponsored by TÜSİAD tomorrow.
There seem to be some good examples of STEM initiatives here in Turkey like the “Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter For The Nation” project – the question is, how to proliferate those programs across the country; how to localize them so they are suitable for each area; and how to personalize them so that they are relevant for each student. Will let you know what we find out over the next four weeks.

In the meantime, just a few observations about Turkey:
1. My knowledge of English, French and Ukrainian does not serve me in any way in Turkey – most word stems are completely foreign and pronunciation – well, I’m hopeless although still trying to learn a few greetings and phrases!
2. Hospitality is ingrained in the culture. From the hotel staff, to the beverage attendants in every office we visit, to our host organization TÜSİAD and the DOT and IBM staff, we have been treated like VIPs.
3. Food is invariably superb and artfully presented.


More anon…