Gelisim News

Students, who are waiting for the publication of the preference leaflets, have already started to research which university and department they would prefer. Along with the developing and changing education sector every day, the question of "Which university adapts to the time and gives me the best education?" makes the young people and their families more worried. With the coronavirus that affects the education sector as well as affecting all the sectors all over the world, education life independent of physical conditions is spoken in the new world order. Giving advice to help students with their university preferences in this sense, Istanbul Gelisim University Vice Rector and Political Science and Public Administration Department Prof. Dr. Nail Öztaş said: “The richest, strongest and most entrepreneurs of the new world will not be cars, iron and steel manufacturers, but people with new ideas. They should prefer the 4th generation universities, where they can reveal the profession and science of the future by trusting young people and offering them a big repository.” Prof. Dr. Nail Öztaş also warned on their career preferences and said that the professions that can keep up with the transformation and time can only survive.

Now that the professions that adapt to the age of science and technology and who have new ideas can survive, Nail Öztaş noted that it is important to adapt to the transformation in this sense and continued: “We live in an age where transformation is accelerating. According to the reports prepared, it is estimated that 60 percent of the current professions in the world will change or disappear in the next 10 years. Neither administrators nor politicians nor university teachers, determine this change and what will be the new professions. More than half of the companies that were among the 500 largest companies in the world in 1955 are not on that list today. Instead, there are companies with information technologies that we all know. If we had said that 10 to 20 years ago, only very few people would have considered it. Today, the owners of these companies, namely the richest, strongest and most entrepreneurs of the new world, are not car, iron and steel manufacturers, but people with new ideas. These are the products of the professions that result from the student's curiosity, interest, different disciplines and knowledge. Therefore, classical basic fields such as chemistry, physics, biology are always up-to-date, but as a result of these cross-combining, amazing new professions emerge. Young people are the ones who will reveal them. That's why we say to young people to choose the profession according to your interest, curiosity and ability.”

Emphasizing that universities should now give students opportunities not only for one area but also for many areas in line with their interests, Öztaş said: “We think that the new mission of the universities, which we define as the 4th generation, is not to draw areas with high borders and high walls, but on the contrary, to offer the environment to capture this richness, this is the key point. In other words, you should offer the student a big repository so that students will reveal the profession of the future, the science of the future. For example, there are over 270 elective courses in the faculties of our university. So we never expose something to the students. They can choose according to their interest and ability. They don't have to direct to only one area. They can combine the branch they study with another field and create a new field and professional position for the future. For example, aircraft engineering and gastronomy. New areas may occur in the future, which dominate both. So the future is a future with incredible opportunities. We should not perceive it as a threat and we should offer our young people an environment where they can trust and reveal those innovations, fields of science and professions. The moment we present this, we need it both in terms of the project of reviving our civilization, in terms of making great contributions to science, and also in terms of increasing our well-being and development of our youth. We need to break those taboos. We have come to the 4th generation universities period, where the campus, departments and programs of the future will be removed. So we have to do this.”

Adding to the recommendations that university achievements should be spread not only across the country but also around the world, Öztaş said: “It is very clear what universities can and cannot do in such a world. Your number of scientific research, their effect, your number of laboratories, your ratio of teachers, your student ratio - all of them are used. Well, the 4th generation has come to the question of how to measure the success of the university of this changing world. One of the things used a lot here is, for example, the ranking made using the sustainability criteria used by Times Higher Education (THE), a prestigious world university ranking. In this pandemic period, we again understood how important the sustainability of the planet, ecology, society and economy is. Universities are ranked according to the 17 sustainability targets determined by the world bank. These started to come into play in university rankings. Our university has also achieved a tremendous success in this regard, we have entered the top 100 in terms of the quality of education in the world. By addressing issues such as sustainable energy, usable quality health care, not only the science produced by the university and the education it provides, but also its interaction with the neighborhood in which it is located, city, country, society and the world measured. These are the factors that the future of the World cares much, and 4th generation universities must think of it. Our university is the first and only university in Turkey delivering compulsory ‘Introduction to Sustainability’ course in all faculties. Because we have one world and that's why it's so important”

Finally, Öztaş stating that we should be careful about the profession of the future and that young people should renew themselves constantly, said: “Actually, it is not necessary to get stuck on the question of which program to choose. Let them choose the department they want according their will, but be able to feed from different areas, to achieve that diversity. There are double major and minor opportunities provided. The much more limited possibilities of our generation have been far exceeded. So while you are studying cinema or psychology, you can go and take lessons such as psychology or law. This is essential for the development of the mind, body and heart. When this information needs to be taken as a whole, all of these must be fed and developed at the same time. The future needs the leadership of young people who have grown this way. At the same time, they need to constantly renew themselves, regardless of their profession. There is a statistic that we call the half-life of information. Today, the half-life of knowledge in medicine has been reduced to five years. In other words, a physician who graduated with the most recent and most reliable information in the world today becomes half 'old' in five years. It is getting outdated. In such a world, people who do not constantly learn do not have a chance to compete. The probability of achieving material and moral results that can satisfy themselves and their family is weak.”