Career Center

Our Career Center’s purpose is leading our students to know themselves during their studies, supporting them on their career planning, giving information about business life’s expectations and guiding them to jobs that they can improve themselves after their graduation.

With our Center’s collaboration with the business world, our students have possibility to work as part-time or do internship with our collaborators subject to their studies.

Career Center’s Practices:

Our Center enables students to work in the positions of our collaborators or do internship as part of the ‘’Business Life Program’’ depending on the companies’ needs. Thus, our business life experienced students start to earn money while they are still studying. In this process, our institute pays the insurance premium for possible occupational diseases and occupational accidents. Most of the part time workers and long-term interns among our students continue to work as full time after their graduations.

As part of the ‘’Business Life Program’’, first ever applied in our university in Turkey, we aim to make our students to know themselves before their graduation, getting sense of self awareness, making decisions about their career choices and gaining the information about business life to be successful. We do these to our preparatory year students by ‘’Business and Life Courses’’ and to our junior and senior students by ‘’Preparation Courses for Graduation’’. At the same time, we support our young students to fit in to this new environment which has its own dynamics, as fast as possible since their very first step to business life.

Courses’ Index:

• Increases our students’ self awareness, enables to determine their strong sides and know themselves better,
• Enables them to specify their vocation and competence about careers,
• Enables them to determine their career options,
• Enables them to create personal vision and aim concept,
• Introduces them to basic notions of business life such as motivation, performance, pro activity,
• Enables them to manage the changing dynamics of becoming a ‘’worker’’ from a ‘’student’’,
• Enables them to create their own personal image and gain communicational skills,
• Enables them to understand searching job techniques and use them creatively and efficiently,
• Enables them to write an effective CV and prepare them to interviews.

Career Center’s Role on Graduates:

• Connections with our graduates and monitoring graduates is another important task of our center. We have been following our graduates since 2007. As much as our students, we also keep in touch with our graduates via social media, e-mails, telephone, student clubs and/or face to face meetings.
• With the workshops focused on industries’ expectations, our students get to meet with business life early; and once they are graduated, with our courses, role model workshops and personal consultancy services, they are supported to find jobs depending on their qualifications.
• Along with our ‘’The University Closest to Business Life’’ motto, we have agreements both on public (such as İŞKUR) and private company levels. Therefore, we play missionary role for our students’ decarceration to industry.
• To let our successful graduates to mentor our young students, OKANALUMNI ASSOCIATION has been established. Our university dedicated itself to communicate with our graduates by any means.

FACULTIES AND CAREER CENTER WORKING TOGETHER: WORKPLACE SUPPORTED EDUCATION PROGRAM ( COOPerative Learning ):

Workplace Supported Education ( COOPerative Learning ) program is predicated on student’s practical working in a business during his/her undergraduate education.

COOPerative Learning’s goals;

1. Familiarizing students to workplaces related to their undergraduate programs,
2. Enabling students to reinforce their information and manners related to education and experience that they have learnt during their undergraduate program by practicing,
3. By up skilling students to be able to let them use their theoretical information and use them practically, COOPerative Learning makes adaptation time to business life after graduation shorter,
4. As the COOPerative Learning program’s education due, enabling students to learn their responsibilities, relations, organization and producing process, getting to know new technologies at their workplace; gaining good communication habits with colleagues and customers.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING'S DURATION and ACHIEVEMENT CONDITIONS:

For Faculty of Engineering;

Mission of the program is letting the students get involved in the workplaces related to their studies for one semester for every year (8 weeks/semester) since their second year; and improve themselves with the practical information alongside with the theoretical information they learnt in the university. As the end of the first semester being the earliest start and the end of the eighth semester is the latest end, 40 working days in a semester, the program is finished in total of 120 working days in 3 semesters.

• Students are able to participate in this program by their will. Students state their demand to participate in this program with petition written to COOPerative Learning Faculty/School Coordinator; and gets accepted to program by board of management decision. The students, who is accepted to this program, are also supposed to register to program in the electronic system.
• To be able to get the department’s COOPerative Learning certificate, students have to receive COOPerative Learning training and complete it successfully by working three (3) semesters, eight (8) weeks in the workplaces (total of 24 weeks or 120 days). Getting a training at workplace non-stop is essential. To complete the total amount of time, continuousness in the specified days of the week is a must.
• Students have their common trainings during summer and/or academic period.

For Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, and School of Applied Sciences Gastronomy Department;

At the second half of the senior year (eighth semester), students are enable to get involved with the activities in the workplaces related to their studies and able to gain practical information alongside with their theoretical information learnt at university.

• Students are able to participate in this program by their will. Students state their demand to participate in this program with petition written to COOPerative Learning Faculty/School Coordinator; and gets accepted to program by board of management decision. The students, who is accepted to this program, are also supposed to register to program in the electronic system.
• To be able to get the department’s COOPerative Learning certificate, students have to receive COOPerative Learning training for 14 weeks and complete it successfully.
• Students have their common trainings during academic period.