by Esra Damla Çakır
Hello everyone! I’m Esra Damla, a graduate student in the Psychology program at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University. I am interested in the field of social-cognitive psychology, and I carry out my studies in this area. I received my bachelor’s degree from AYBU and during this period, I had two internship experiences, one at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and the other at KU Leuven University in Belgium. In this blog post, I would like to share with you what kind of factors were influential in my ability to take advantage of the international academic opportunities that I encountered during my time here and how the Independent Learning Center (ILC), which I have been a big fan of since I was a prep school student, contributed to this process. If you’re ready, let’s start! 😊
“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
Frank Smith (a Canadian psycholinguist)
I would like to take you to my prep school period where many of our readers are now in. Our university was the second state university in Ankara that used to provide 100% English medium instruction in almost all its programs. Although I wanted to learn English very much at that time, the potential difficulties I could experience both in the prep school process and in the undergraduate years were intimidating. However, I chose to study at AYBU because I believed it would open the way for access to resources and international communication, and it did so 🙂 When we started prep school, I understood that the education we would receive would not be a grammar-oriented one that we were accustomed to until that time. Reading, writing, listening and speaking skills were all given special attention. There was the excitement and uneasiness of both meeting with a new system and being a university student. We were now, in a sense, more “independent” individuals, and were expected to develop a new working style in a new system. Just in that period, in all the classes, the ILC was being introduced. At first, for me, the ILC was like a computer lab where I went to do my homework on the internet, but later on, I saw how the center contributed to the independent learning experiences of students through both cultural and academic activities. It was a learning center where we had access to various materials for writing, reading, and listening, and an instructor we could consult most of the time. In addition, thanks to Speaking Clubs, we had the opportunity to practice with native English speakers without worrying about grades. I have to say that thanks to these club meetings, although I am a little rusty now, I had no hesitation about “speaking” when I graduated from prep school, and it increased my confidence in issues like reaching out to foreign researchers during my undergraduate years.
At the beginning of my third year at university, I was a student assistant in our school’s Social-Cognition Laboratory. As I had reached a certain level academically and could decide more or less what research area I was interested in, I wanted to have research experience where I worked with other researchers from other schools. In this sense, since we were in Ankara, there were many opportunities in the country, but I wanted to try my luck abroad and have both an academic and cultural experience. Just when I decided on this, I started searching about the Erasmus+ Internship Mobility program. Unlike the learning mobility, this program is usually held during the summer semesters. In order to participate in this program, you first need to find the institution you are going to and get an invitation letter from. That’s why I decided to contact academics whose research I was interested in and whose fields of study were similar to mine. First of all, I learned that I needed a “cover letter”. It was basically a formal mail where I talk about myself, my research interests, and why I wanted to study with that professor particularly. It is possible to find countless examples for these cover letters on the internet and it was not difficult for me to prepare it because I concentrated a lot on “writing” during the prep school period. For this, the resources at the ILC and the guidance of the instructors there were also very effective. In addition to that, since all the papers we prepared during the undergraduate period were in English, we never stopped writing completely.
In this process, I received feedback from the professors I sent my cover letter and resume to, and one of them wanted to interview me. Finally, as a result of a meeting with two academics from Tilburg University who wanted to carry out a study in Turkey, my internship state was determined, and I received my acceptance letter. During this period, which coincided with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Erasmus programs were canceled. Although I could not be physically present in the Netherlands, I continued my internship online and I must say that the communication with my supervisors who used online platforms very well was never broken and it was a very productive process including the study’s literature review, design preparation, data collection, and analysis procedures.
When it was my senior year, the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at KU Leuven University, which is one of the most innovative universities in Europe and has a main building that looks like coming from a Harry Potter movie, published an internship call for all psychology students who perceive an academic career in the field. I completed my application hoping to participate in the framework of Erasmus + Internship mobility this time. I was lucky to be accepted, and I completed my internship mobility application with my acceptance letter. Unfortunately, due to the increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases in Belgium at that time, I could not be physically there again, and my internship took place online. Here, the different part from Tilburg University would be that I had the opportunity to closely observe how an international laboratory works and study on a different statistical method with my supervisor. As you can see, I didn’t have much luck when it comes to going abroad physically 😊 but I believe that I got the most academic and cultural efficiency as I worked in institutions that were very well adapted to online.
Besides all these academic activities, being able to use English effectively has been a factor that paves the way for many social interactions for me. Last autumn, we crossed paths with Jugendbotschafter e. V. (Youth Ambassadors Association), a youth-created community that aims to promote the dialogue between Germany and Turkey. I attended The Youth Ambassadors Starters Program 2021 where young people from Germany and Turkey came together in İstanbul and developed their project ideas and deepened their understanding of project management. I also had to chance to take part in a wide variety of workshops. It was one of the best examples of intercultural interaction and our common language was English. This interaction motivated me to try my luck once again for Erasmus+ learning mobility and my application was approved. I am officially a second-semester graduate student University Koblenz Landau in Germany as of next semester in the scope of the Erasmus+ learning mobility program.
I will never forget these experiences that I had during my prep school and undergraduate years because every one of them made those times unique in their own ways. Being able to use English effectively helped me a lot and I hope that I have been able to convey the academic and social advantages of it. Please feel free to contact me via the e-mail address below if you have anything to comment on or ask about my views here. I wish you a productive and enjoyable prep school process!
AUTHOR BIO:
Esra Damla was born in Kayseri, Turkey and spent her childhood across all country. She received her undergraduate degree as a high honor student from Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University. She is now a graduate student in Psychology department and mainly interested insocial and cognitive psychology, in particular, subjects like abstract and concrete thinking, meta-cognition, social identity, and cross-cultural perspective. She is a story writer in addition to her academic studies and likes to use the “zero endings” technique in her stories. She enjoys spending her free time with her family and friends, her favorite times of the year are the mornings of the holidays that are celebrated together.
Contact E-mail: edamlacakir@gmail.com
The ILC Blog 