Global Partners Turkey Weblog

Global Partners, a consortium of colleges, sends students every year to study in Turkey for a semester. This year we are recording the experience in the following series of blogs, for the amusement and edification of our friends, relatives, and prospective students.  Each participant is contributing at least one blog on one of the earlier fieldtrips.

The directors this year are Kathryn Kamp and John Whittaker, Anthropology professors from Grinnell College. The 16 students this year come from Grinnell, Ripon, Kalamazoo, Beloit, Swarthmore, Colorado, Rollins, Centre, and Centenary Colleges, and Furman University.

The program begins with three weeks in Istanbul, during which we take intensive Turkish language classes and explore Istanbul. There follows a week of bus touring, visiting famous sites like Ephesus, Troy, Gallipoli, and Aphrodisias as we transit to Ankara. At Ankara, students enroll in either METU (Middle Eastern Technical University) or Bilkent University, both top institutions where much of the teaching is in English. We live in university facilities with Turkish roommates and colleagues. Students can take essentially any course of studies that fits their home majors, and everyone takes language classes, and attends the “Core Course” taught by the directors. The course includes a variety of readings on Turkish history and culture, and field trips to cultural sites in and around Ankara.