FROM THE HEAD OF DEPARTMENT

Dear Friends, Hello

With the arrival of its first students, our department began its academic activities in the 2019–2020 academic year. The main goal of our department's establishment was to provide undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students with the knowledge and skills they need to work on both national and international platforms, in line with current and anticipated needs in the area of international trade and business.

To sum up our configuration for the purposes of this aim/target:

First of all, we are aware that individuals working on global platforms should be fluent in at least one foreign language. The language that is currently spoken the most around the globe is English. Following a year of intensive English instruction for our students, we continue our 4-year undergraduate program using only English for instruction. Thus, our graduates will be equipped to speak in a foreign language in a professional capacity for both official business correspondence and daily conversation.

Second, we carefully develop the courses and curricula for our undergraduate programs and update them to reflect the demands of the time. The requirements and developments in the areas of international finance, business, accounting, marketing, trade, logistics, and business management have been taken into consideration when developing our department's courses and course materials.

Third, being able to work in digital environments on a global and national scale becomes increasingly important as a result of the age. We have expanded our curriculum to include courses in fundamental coding, e-commerce, big data analysis, and related digital systems to improve the knowledge and skills of our graduates in these fields.

Fourth, we place a high value on university-industry partnerships. The main goal of this initiative is to support Izmir's business community and industry as a university, as well as to give our students access to internship and part-time job opportunities that will help them gain more professional experience while they are still in school. Izmir, a port city, has housed numerous businesses engaged in global commerce and logistics. One of our top priorities is making sure that our students take advantage of these opportunities to the fullest extent possible.

Erasmus and other similar international exchange programs are a further issue to which we give importance. As a department, we place a high value on internationalization and offer opportunities through Erasmus programs for our top students to continue their education for one or two semesters abroad. We are still expanding the number of agreements we have in this area with foreign universities. Additionally, we are focusing on Erasmus internships.