In the last weeks I have received extremely positive feedback, sweet direct messages & comments with regard to my semester abroad at the  Boğaziçi University (BOUN). So far, I'm really enjoying it! I can encourage all of you to do Erasmus! Since many of you consider a study abroad here too, I wanted to shed light upon both sides with regard to my experience at the BOU.

PROS:

• The equipment of the BOU is awesome: We have a student gym, an indoor and outdoor swimming pool,(whenever we use it, we have to pay 70 Lira which is ~2,50€), basketball, volleyball & tennis court, dancing & pilates room
• My student collegues and my instructors are very open and kind - They've always helped me whenever I have faced a problem or difficulties.
• The food provided in the universities main cafeteria (yemekhane) is clean, cheap & tasty (most of the time it's ev yemekleri = house made). One meal costs 15 Lira (go to my previous posts and see how large and delicious these meals are!). You charge your student card with a certain amount of money (min. 50 and max. 200 Lira) with the Garanti ATM’s on campus/outside. Then, you can scan your ID at the entrance of the dining hall.
• Everywhere on the campus are cafeterias and other eating opportunities which are an alternative to the food offered in the dining hall (e.g. wraps, soups, dürüms etc.). Thus, you can hang out with friends, study and just chill there.
• I love the direct view to the Bosphorus, community pets (cats and dogs) and nature: the university's name means "Bosphorus Uni". With the direct view to the Bosphorus and the green nature of the university, you have a great time out from the stressful university life. Sometimes I just sit there and enjoy the view with my book and a cat on my lap. It's so calming and balancing!
• We have electro scooters and a shuttle bus on campus. I can't tell how helpful these shuttle busses and scooters are since the way to the south campus is 10-15 mins with a lot of ups and downs along the way. From 8am-19pm the shuttle busses are picking us up at the entrance and letting us off when we head home. Afterwards, we have the possibility to use the eletronic scooters “BinBin” (we have to pay for it but it’s a small amount of mine: 1 min = 2 Lira). It's also a lot fun!

CONTRA:

• only one day before the register process started we got an introduction on how we have to register for the courses. Me and other students were really overwhelmed and confused about the uni's register system since it was very complicated at first. And way too many infos to grasp and understand! Also our nomination letters / acceptance letters were given to us. The university could have done it earlier...many students said the university is a bit famous for being "unorganised".
• the planning of my university schedule and the university's register process was really stressful! There are 3-4 phases. All of them were connected to deadlines with specific times which were unnecessary in my opinion. Thus, many instructors didn't admitted me to their courses even though my advisor and I talked to them but they didn't do exceptions. Ofc, this was not with every course...
• Language of instruction or communication is not always followed. During classes: longer moments/minutes where students and instructors speak in Turkish (could be excluding for non-native speakers). Thus, In all exams, except for one, the instructions were given in Turkish since the assistants of the department were the supervisors during the exam BUT also here the language of instruction should be English since we had a lot of Erasmus students during the semester. Please, don't get me wrong here but I think during larger discussions and instructions, it's important to let everybody know what's going on the room or atleast translate it afterwards...

Please, don’t be upset when I do not answer you since many people ask the same thing several times a day. If you have certain questions regarding Erasmus, living in Istanbul etc…Comment under the posts because most of the time, I’m seeing the comments directly…Thank you! 🌸