On September 14 and 15, ACM Bilkent hosted the seventh annual meeting of the ACM Turkey student chapters. In addition, representatives of the organization were on hand in the Odeon on the first day of orientation to introduce ACM Bilkent to new students.
ACM Bilkent is a student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), one of the oldest professional organizations in the field of computer science. The Bilkent chapter is also one of the most active ACM student chapters in Turkey.
One of its most important endeavors during the previous academic year was organizing the local events for the international ACM Celebration of Women in Computing. Along with its preprofessional and technically oriented activities, ACM Bilkent also hosts or co-hosts social events, such as Social Media Days, Meet the Grads Night (featuring Bilkent alumni who have had notable success in their careers), quiz nights, movie nights and seminars.
The ACM Turkey student chapters meeting is held every year at the home university of one of the chapters. This year’s meeting at Bilkent hosted attendees from Hacettepe, Fırat, Selçuk and Düzce universities.
On the first day, ACM-W Vice Chair and Bilkent University Instructor Reyyan Ayfer gave the keynote speech, after which representatives of each university introduced themselves and described the events organized and attended by their ACM chapters in recent years. The second day started with a brunch and continued with a meeting for the chairs and vice chairs of all the branches, where they discussed ways to further develop and promote their organizations. By hosting the annual meeting, ACM Bilkent helped to foster stronger connections among the various ACM student chapters in Turkey.
Two days after the meeting, on September 17, ACM Bilkent members helped welcome Bilkent’s incoming class on the first day of this year’s orientation, as one of 74 student clubs that set up booths in the Odeon where representatives could meet with new students and talk about their clubs’ missions and activities. A large number of students – almost 280 – expressed an interest in joining ACM Bilkent at the outset of their university life.
All students, in any year of their studies at Bilkent, who might want to become part of this multidisciplinary student club are welcome to attend ACM Bilkent’s introductory meeting on October 2 at 5:40 p.m. in EE01.