This semester the First-Year English Program is running several new courses as part of more general changes within the first-year curriculum. Students were able to choose the classes from among those regularly offered by their faculty. The program aims to help students improve their English while becoming critically engaged with the world. Our objective is to create courses in which students have the opportunity to experience and reflect on parts of life - ideas, texts, places, art, and so on - that they would not likely encounter in their usual course of study within their faculties. That was our goal, but what do the students think?
"I like the War, Ethics, and Beauty class mainly because we do literature. It is much more fun to read words and guess the meanings between the lines. Another nice thing about the class is that everyone has wanted to be here. This is important because it promotes action in class, everyone participates and states their view."
Kerem Yücetürk
"The best thing about the course is that we decide what to do in class. We have lots of chances to discuss because the subjects that we cover are very subjective. Also, by having a chance to go on trips to theatres and a children's center in Ankara we have socialized ourselves (which is crucial in university life)."
Alper Çorakçı
"Self-service. I do not like to go to restaurants where there are limited types and amounts of food. I like seeing variety and trying different tastes. So it is in our English class War, Ethics, and Beauty. These three words define our subject. We discussed these subjects from different points of view-ethics, social life, art, and politics. So if you want to taste different things, join us!"
Yiğithan Dedeoğlu
"Although we have a lot of work to do in this course, I like it. Reading different and enjoyable books about war is really interesting as we see war from different sides. We are not learning "war is a bad thing," but we learn and search "why people have wars and what are the historical reasons for war." By searching about war, we search for human behaviors at the same time."
Leyla Demirel
"I really like this class, because we're able to learn about many interesting topics and discuss them. The texts we read and the movies we watch are very interesting, too. The course encourages me to think more critically in many situations."
Alev Kuruoğlu
"I like this class because we are doing many thing; we're not just stuck with one type of thing. When we deal with a particular piece of literature, we first learn about its background, its history, and this is really helpful to get a good understanding of the piece. And while we read the literature, we relate it to other pieces that we have studied, and the discussions provide us with the opportunity to think critically about the piece(s). Then we watch a movie and relate it to the other pieces we have read/watched, and this is really nice and fun."
Gökçe Görbil
The First-Year English Program is offering a total of four new courses this semester. Michelle Akçar and Christine Tardy are teaching a course entitled "Language, Power and Authority" in the Faculty of Business Administration. Meg Gillio is teaching "Oppressed Voices in Contemporary Literature" in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. And Şenol Bezci is looking at "Exploring Humor" with his class in the Faculty of Engineering. If you're interested in learning more about the war course, check out the class Web site, which was prepared by the students, at http://bilkent.edu.tr/~daren.
Dr. Darren Hudson, English Instructor
