Kocaeli

For the first half our trip we would be in Kocaeli to take part in a workshop at the University there. Turkey has a high proportion of its youth enrolled in higher education, and the University of Kocaeli, although set in the mountains of a small industrial town has sixty five thousand students enrolled.

The campus was huge, with staircases and roads winding through the slopes and hills connecting each building.

 

When we arrived at the campus we were brought in to a large lecture hall with well over a hundred students from the economics faculty seated in front of the panel.

Throughout t the two day workshop we heard talks from various lecturers from our own and Kocaelis faculty. The discussions all related to Turkey, the topics ranged from its economy and attempt to join the European Union to Turkeys role in the Global Order . The lecture and discussion I found most interesting during the workshop was given by Dr Gul Ceylan Tok on Social Change and Mobility in Turkey. The lecture focused on the Gezi Park Protests which began in May 2013 and sparked anti-government protests across the country.

The protestors in Gezi Park campaigned against its demolition with sit in protests, which the police responded to with tear gas and live bullets. When the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that the demolition would go ahead despite the protests violence increased and both protestors and police officers died as a result of the announcement. In June 2013 the first protestor was shot dead by police as Prime Minister Erdogan became ever more adamant to demolish Gezi Park and quell the movement against him. However it seems that his behavior and reaction seems to have increased the support against him.

On the next day of the workshop and our final day in Kocaeli we were to have the closing remarks and discussions for the workshop and finish with a picnic and barbeque in the national park aligned with the university campus. The time at the end gave us the opportunity to get to know the students we had been spending time with better and find out more about what it was like to study in Turkey and more about the places they were from.