Department of International Relations offers three undergraduate programs: International Relations, Political Science and European Union Studies. The department provides also an MA Program in International Relations focusing on Regional Studies and a PhD Program in Political Science. By the 2014-2015 academic year, total number of currently registered students in undergraduate, MA and Phd programs exceeds 1,200. Moreover, total number of graduated students from these programs are approximately 2,000.
Within the first two years, all of the three programs offer joint or similar basic courses. By the third year, the programs differentiate from each other, as each program starts offering different compulsory courses. All of the programs benefit from a common pool, which hosts a wide range of elective courses. For instance, while an International Relations student takes ‘International Law and International Organizations’ as a compulsory course, a Political Science Student can take a different compulsory course, such as Political Sociology or Social Policy. The compulsory courses of one program can be taken as an elective course by the students of other programs.
Our object for all three programs is to offer an education that encourages multi-dimensional, critical, analytic and creative thinking. In this manner, we can endow the students with the necessary knowledge and means of analysis, helping them to become skillful in a framework of rapidly transforming international system under the current economic crisis. Within this framework, multidimensional knowledge on Turkey and its neighboring regions are also provided. Our students have opportunities to spend one or two semesters abroad with many international exchange programs, mainly ERASMUS. Those opportunities are actively seized by our students.
Observing carefully global issues such as global economic crisis, ecological issues, social movements, political perspectives, state structures and so on closely; our curriculum is being constantly updated and elaborated in line with the recent developments. Not a unilateral transformation of knowledge, but a genuine and productive instructor-student relation and sophisticated discussions are aimed at in all courses.
In collaboration with European Institute, Center for Migration Research and Center for Strategic Studies; our department hosts prestigious national and international events.
Department has 22 full-time academic personnel, including 15 full, associate or assistant professors, 2 lecturers, and 5 research assistants; holding degrees from the prestigious universites in the national and international level such as Harvard, Virginia, Carleton, Strasbourg, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Université Libre de Bruxelles, London School of Economics, METU and Boğaziçi University.