Our university Food Engineering Department that was established in 2010 October with the approval of The Council of Higher Education will start undergraduate program with its first students in 2011-2012 academic year in Okan University Tuzla Campus.
The academic staff of Istanbul Okan University Food Engineering Department which is one of the 3 Food Engineering programs offered by foundation universities in Istanbul consists of 2 professors, 3 associated professors, 2 assistant professors, 1 university lecturer, and 1 research assistant that are experts in their fields and have both national and international research experiences. The faculty of Food Engineering Department has a broad range of technical interest and expertise, and their diverse backgrounds are quite consistent with the multi-disciplinary nature of the food engineering discipline. The backgrounds of the faculty members include food engineering and agricultural engineering.
Istanbul Okan University Food Engineering Department aims to develop expertise in; mathematics included differential equations, chemistry, physics, physical chemistry, and biological sciences, as well as biological kinetics, biological materials, heat and mass transfer, information systems, process control subjects, and food processing systems with its undergraduate program.
Istanbul Okan University Food Engineering undergraduate program is designed to meet the MÜDEK and ABET criteria. Students who have completed English preparatory class will continue with a 4-year program that all courses are taught in English. The most important feature of the program is that ‘Education with Industrial Cooperation’ program (Cooperative Training) is included in 4-year undergraduate curriculum to educate food engineers computing in today’s technology, having an understanding of innovation, learned how to learn, equipped with the qualifications needed by the industry and ready for business life. This program, with the cooperation of the food industry and the university, provides opportunities for the students to practice their knowledge and skills gained by the educational activities. Education with industrial training is placed into food engineering undergraduate program and mandatory for “Food Engineer” title. The aims of this program are to:
This cooperative training program built on the basic education training program will continue with the course of ‘Capstone Design Project’. In this way, our students, by taking advantage of all the knowledge, skills and formation earned till 8th semester will participate in the program’s most important design project by taking part in the industry and creating solutions to recent problems directly. Students will be able to work for 4 days and 8 hours a day during 12 weeks of the semester according to “Education with Industrial Cooperation “program. Students should have a minimum 2.0 GPA success to begin “Education with Industrial Cooperation’ program. Our studens, when they completed their 4-years program while they accomplish their “Food Engineering” title, at the same time they will also have industry experience.
‘Technical Electives’ courses include “Fundamentals of Food Marketing, Food Additives, Shelf-Life of Foods, Functional Foods, Novel Foods, Food Packaging, Novel Food Technologies, Risk Analysis for Foods, Cereal Technology” planned according to student’s interests in Food Engineering.
Besides the basic engineering and program courses, general education courses by which students will be able to understand the effects of these applications on society are also included. In this context, in addition to Turkish and History of Turkish Revolution courses, program also includes courses such as Behavioural Sciences, Philosophy, Communication, History and Arts. Moreover, besides English, there are foreign language elective courses such as Russian, German, Arabic and Chinese.
Istanbul Okan University Food Engineering Department offers students modern classes for education as well as chemical, microbiological and computer laboratories for applications of these courses.
