Within the scope of the Summit Talks in TercihFest '24 program, Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey Governor Fatih Karahan, TÜRGEV Chairman Hatice Akıncı Yılmaz, Turkish Red Crescent President Fatma Meriç Yılmaz, Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) President Nail Olpak, Historian Erhan Afyoncu, Anadolu Agency Academy and Publication Coordinator Yahya Bostan and Former Footballer Mesut Özil met with prospective students.
Within the scope of TercihFest, the prospective students, whom we hosted at our University on July 19-21, 2024, had the opportunity to meet with prominent names in their fields and listen to their experiences and advice with Summit Talks.
On the first day of the event, Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş, Minister of Family and Social Services of the Republic of Turkey, came together with the prospective students at the Summit Talks and told them that if they protect their values, history will write their stories, not those of their opponents. Giving examples from her own life to the students in the preference process, Göktaş advised the university candidates to never compromise on their beliefs and personalities and stated that life will always open new doors after this compromise. Underlining that he wanted to be a lawyer during his own preference process, but instead he graduated from the Department of Management Engineering and is now actively engaged in politics, Göktaş said that the important thing is to stick to the goals even if we cannot predict the directions life will take us and the person we will become in the future. Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş stated that every choice made is a renunciation and that the candidates may not find what they want as a result of this choice, but that they should see this as a beginning, not an end.
Meeting with prospective students at the Summit Talks, Fatih Karahan, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, mentioned that economics is a discipline that is interconnected with social sciences such as sociology, psychology and history, even though they may seem independent at first glance. Karahan stated that economics is intertwined with all social sciences and is shaped by these factors, from the reasons for the tendencies of society in the framework of marriage and having children to researching the dynamics of infectious diseases after epidemics affecting the whole world such as Covid-19. The Governor of the Central Bank ended his speech by reminding the students that the most limited resource is not money but time.
Hatice Akıncı Yılmaz, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Youth and Community Service Foundation (TÜRGEV), the founding foundation of our university, talked about the importance of volunteer work for university candidates and the contributions that participating in volunteer work individually will make to students' mental and intellectual worlds. Yılmaz also touched upon capitalism in this context, adding that the Western civilization's view of science traps people in a vicious circle because it pursues an understanding based on classification. Describing young people as a movement point at the basis of society, TÜRGEV Chairman of the Board of Directors emphasized that perhaps the protests held in universities have brought the most voice about the massacre in Palestine, so the work of the participants, each of whom is a university student candidate, will have a great impact on society.
In her speech, Fatma Meriç Yılmaz, President of the Turkish Red Crescent, advised the students not to shape their lives only around school and classes and to always have a simultaneous source of occupation and energy. Yılmaz talked about the process of choosing Biochemistry, which had a lower score than medical departments at that time, despite being a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, and mentioned how professionally satisfying it was for her to progress in a field she believed in and loved, while her environment did not support her decision. Yılmaz exemplified that doing the job he loves contributes to the rapid progress in that job by becoming a professor at the age of 37, and reminded university candidates of the importance of choosing the department that leads to that profession in order to do the profession they love.
Describing success as bringing out the best in every job, DEİK President Nail Olpak emphasized the importance of having good intentions and making efforts to achieve success. Olpak, who categorized money as the first priority until the level to sustain life at a minimum level, the second priority for the average life level and then the third priority, talked about the prominent aspects of doing a job that is productive and loved in addition to earning well. Stating that making the right choice during the preference process is the real success, Olpak ended his speech by defining success as being where one should be.
Historian Erhan Afyoncu, in his speech, emphasized that the important thing is to do the profession very well, no matter which profession is chosen, and told the prospective students that it is easy to be the first among equals, but the main thing is to stand out among those who are better than them. Mentioning 2 vital skills that a historian possesses as a successful historian, Afyoncu defined them as having a good method and being able to convey information through a process of criticism. He mentioned that a historian should know very well where to look at which event, for example, when researching an event 100 years ago through the news made by a media organization, it is necessary to recognize the political and ideological view of that media organization in advance, otherwise it may be possible to have biased information about the event being researched and the possible damages of this to the profession of historiography, and ended his speech with a question and answer session.
Yahya Bostan, the Academy and Publication Coordinator of Anadolu Agency, started his speech by congratulating the University administration for organizing an event such as TercihFest on a regular basis for years and stated that this reflects the vision of the University quite successfully. Speaking about the subtleties, features and handicaps of his profession as an experienced journalist, Bostan told university candidates who are considering choosing journalism or a related profession that the most important thing is equipment, and the better equipped a person is, the better journalist he will be. Referring to the fact that every news story is actually a story, Bostan stated that what is called news has an ethic that cannot be reduced to a sentence like “Truck Accident on X Road” and that a journalist is obliged to learn the story behind every event he reports. Bostan talked about the importance of consulting with prospective students during the preference process and evaluated TercihFest as a consultation mechanism in itself. Yahya Bostan advised them to keep their goals long-term while making their preferences, and concluded his speech by telling the candidates to think human and value-oriented, not material-oriented, and that as long as their intentions for their own future are good, that result will be good no matter how it ends up.
The last summit speech of TercihFest 2024 witnessed an enjoyable conversation with Former Footballer Mesut Özil. Stating that his goal is to do what he enjoys rather than being a star, Özil said that his tremendous success in his football career was realized thanks to this idea. Defining discipline as the most important factor for success behind the university candidates' striving for the best for their future during a long and difficult process, Özil added that he has never stopped living with discipline in any period of his life. When asked about the German society's disapproval of his reactions as a Turk and a Muslim to the atrocities in East Turkistan and Palestine, Özil said that he was used to this feeling of discrimination as someone who was born and raised in Germany and that such reactions no longer affected him, underlining that the important thing is to incorporate our own culture and belief system into our daily lives.
Stating that after 16 years of success in football, his current goal is to establish a Football Academy in Turkey, the former footballer mentioned his goal of raising the star footballers of the future in his academy with ethics, discipline and self-confidence and recommended the same criteria to the TercihFest participants.
The last summit of TercihFest 2024 ended after a pleasant question and answer session between Mesut Özil and prospective students.
Turkey's first and only preference festival TercihFest, where we hosted successful prospective students at the preference stage, hosted social activities such as workshops, preference counseling and guidance services, meeting with alumni and Bosphorus Tour, competitions with prizes, and open-air cinema in addition to the Summit Talks.
