Joy of 9th Graduation in Üsküdar!
Üsküdar University has bid farewell to the 9th graduates with the 2021-2022 Academic Year graduation ceremony. Graduates with joy of receiving their diplomas, experienced both excitement and pride at the same time. Üsküdar University President and President of Supreme Management Council Prof. Nevzat Tarhan gave valuable advises to the alumni in his speech which has quality of one more last lesson of the year. Stating that our goal is not to only teach technical and academic skills as a university Tarhan said that “If we do not teach life skills, young people who have only learned technical skills, do wrong things.” Prof. Nevzat Tarhan also added: “By teaching you social skills and emotional skills, we have developed a strategy that you will be both successful and happy in life and also will do good things as graduates. And, we tried to apply this, as well.”.
“Learning only technical skills leads to do wrong things”
Enthusiasm and excitement were experienced at the same time during the 9th Graduation Ceremony held in the Ataşehir Ülker Sports and Event Hall. Vice Rector and Graduation Organization Coordinator Prof. Sevil Atasoy and Vice Rector Prof. Hikmet Koçak were among academicians who participated in the ceremony where Üsküdar University Head of Board of Trustee and Member of TARHAN – IDER Foundation Management Council Fırat Tarhan also attended.
Üsküdar University President and President of Supreme Council of Management Prof. Nevzat Tarhan gave some advices to our new graduates in his opening speech.
Stating that we are gathering in this first graduation ceremony of Üsküdar family after the pandemic, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “I would like to call those who were students during the pandemic as veterans. They went to university under difficult conditions. Sometimes they have been to the university and sometimes they have taken online course and they have followed lessons online. During the pandemic, we gave a very rapid reaction to it as university. Without doing any video lessons, our professors showed great example of sacrifice. We continue lessons online as live and we tried to continue education without decreasing the quality of education. Thankfully, process about the pandemic is going in a controlled way. We are almost in the stage of being able to hold a grand meeting on this matter. That’s why I would like to say to all of us and humanity that we have recovered from this process.”.
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan indicated that university education is just like a marathon and said “This graduation ceremony is one of the most important milestones for our young fellows. Now being student is over. Being student have an aspect of leisure time and the aspect of responsibility is seen less. After graduation, this leisure time will be limited little bit and responsibilities will be more occurred. That’s why, I would like to welcome our new graduates to the reality of life because the dynamics after graduation is not the same as the dynamics before the graduation. Those who can adapt to this, those who are successful at school, can be successful at life; they can be successful at their professions, and they can be successful at their family life. “.
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan stated that our aims as a university are not to teach only technical and academic skills but also to tech life skills at the same time and he continued “By teaching you social skill and emotional skills, we developed a strategy that you can be graduates who will be happy and successful in life and who will do good things. We put an effort to apply this strategy and there are skills of the 21st Century within this strategy. There are skills of innovation and entrepreneurship. Just I have said it shortly before, there are life skills. We established these life skills by creating a course named Positive Psychology in 2013 during the first years of university. Later, Harvard University started this course in 2015. Later, Yale University began to teach it in 2018. Now, this course is given in secondary schools and high schools in developed countries. Mindfulness is thought as a course not only in universities but also in those schools.”.
Emphasizing the importance of life skills Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “If we do not teach life skills, young people who learned only technical skills do wrong things. When we examine the content of these courses on life skills, what does it teach? It teaches to know yourself, empathy, forgiveness, helping and sharing.”.
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan continued with his words and said “These are already the reality of our Anatolian wisdom. We tried to present this within a scientific methodology and we presented a positive psychology course. We contributed greatly to the literature on this matter and we achieved first results of this in the academy. We experienced an interesting event. Within that program, there are 17 labels. Üsküdar University was deemed worthy 2 labels of those 17 labels. That’s why 2021-2022 brought good luck to us.”.
Stating that one of the labels is Quality Education, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that “We proved that we provide a world-class education. In last years, Time Higher Education (THE) that is an organization using standards of United Nations, officially gave us this label within the international standards in last April. The other label is Good Health and Well Being. The main reason that we earn this label is that we teach life skills to the youth since the first grade. We obtained this label when we documented this. This is not an easy label to get.”.
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that being able to foresee the state of the world on certain topics contributed a lot to this by being proactive and also stated that Üsküdar University ranked on top 500 foundation universities among world universities. Tarhan continued his words by saying:
“This year we experienced another surprise. There is an organization for institution and university ranking called SCIMAGO. It is other than THE organization. SCIMAGO also ranks world universities within the research index of Scopus database. In ranking of world universities, there are four foundation universities in Türkiye within top 500 universities. We are one of that four universities. We are a university that has a high research index score and is among top 500 universities in the world. We ranked among top 500 universities by an international ranking organization among 5 research indexes in the world. Even our ranking is 398, you can find it on our website.”
Moreover, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan also informed about another good news from UNESCO and said “There is a UNESCO TWAS program. UNESCO determined excellence centers. The UNESCO Representative visited our university. They announced us as an excellence center for neuroscience field and they published it. We are the only university with an excellence center in Türkiye. It is defined by UNESCO TWAS and they decided to send us students for postdoc education, that is, post doctorate education in the field of neuroscience.”
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that we received another good news from Ministry of Industry and Technology and he continued “Our esteemed Minister Mustafa Varank announced it. They published a list of universities with patent applications in Türkiye. We ranked second with 12 patents among foundation universities this year. We ranked second in patent applications among 200 universities, foundation universities in Türkiye. Here, I would like to thank to our academicians and those who applied to patents and here there is a technology transfer office and incubator center that we founded. As you know it is before the Technopark. There one coordinator who is responsible for patents in our incubator center. There is one coordinator who is responsible for projects. We have responsible departments for subject on R&D. This is one of the first results that is yielded from establish a technology transfer office in according to standards by TUBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye). This incubator center is carried out by our technology transfer office and labors of our academicians. That is, it is not possible to achieve these results if our academicians do not look after it. Here, I thank to all our academicians who raised our students on behalf of them. Their labor is very important. Moreover, I would like to express my gratitude to all esteemed and honorable mothers, fathers and seniors who trust their children to us and support them constantly. Thank you and may you live long!”.
Stating that as university, they gave about 30 thousand students and now they have 23 thousand students within the university, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that “There are 6 faculties, 1 vocational school and 5 institutes. We have over 600 academic staff, 39 undergraduate program, 59 associate degree programs, 46 postgraduation programs, 14 doctorate programs and 86 laboratories. We have officially recognized application partner NPISTANBUL Hospital which is the second neuroscience hospital in the Europe and the first one in Türkiye. This hospital continues its services intensely in the international area. Now, it is in service of our students as a hospital that carried out with international patients occupying one-third of capacity. Both interns and fourth grade students of Faculty of Medicine will have internship here and then they will be interns.”.
Emphasizing that as a university, they aim to be not in the world standards but to be above the world standards Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that “World standards is a small goal for us. The big goal is to be above the world standards. Therefore, I would like to tell an example to our students since our goals are big. In 1960s, American President Kennedy, visits NASA. He see a cleaning personnel there. He has the broom in his hands and he jokingly asked him ‘What are you doing?’. Can you believe the vision of the cleaning personnel? He says ‘I help in preparation of spaceships to be sent to the space.’ Vision. When Architecture Sinan was building Süleymaniye Mosque, he visits 1 or 2 workers there. He asks about that they are doing. One of them says ‘I work for a daily wage.’ And the other worker says ‘I am building the biggest sanctuary of the world.’ Both of them are doing the same job but the vision is really important here.”.
Stressing the importance of having a vision, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “My young fellows, let your vision to be bigger than yours. Let your vision to be bigger than Türkiye. Let your Vision to be bigger than universe. In that way, only you can make the right decisions and go forward in the right way. This is one of the most matters that we give importance the most and it is the matter that we aim to reach with positive psychology course… Yale University made this course open to public with the title of goodness science and 3.5 million people registered to this course in a short time and New York Times published a news about this. Why? Because people need goodness science. That’s what the world leads to right now. These knowledges are produced by our Anatolian culture. It is the culture of east. This is our social capital. We need to enrich our social capital. The capitalist system that focused on mainly financial capital now crashed against the wall and now it is working on social capital, working more on the psychological capital.”.
Indicating that it is understood that a human being is a psychological creature, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that “All economists were desiring a Homo Economicus in the 2000s. Daniel Kahneman who is economist psychologist, received the 2002 Nobel prize. His thesis was on psychological factors in buying behavior. After that, it is understood that a person is not Homo Economicus but is a Homo Psychologicus. A human being is a psychological creature. When investing, they do not invest for money, they invest in things they love, they do it for appreciation, for trust. That’s why, we need to improve ourselves in this field. To summarize, I would like to say that to our young fellows, you should have ego ideals and goals when you realizing your ideals.”.
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan also warned young graduates and said “I would like to warn them on one matter. Believe me that social media is a very dangerous and troubled place. If you make one mistake, your relatives will forget it but social media does not. When you do a mistake, your loved ones will forgive it but social media does not. That’s why, I resemble the social media with a backslider. It is not possible to know their intentions truly. It has proven by experience. I wish success to you all.”
Prof. Nevzat Tarhan chatted with a graduate
Gamze Önder who graduated from Üsküdar University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Social Work chatted with Prof. Nevzat Tarhan Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan chatted for a while. Tarhan congratulated and wished success to Gamze Önder who received her diploma by joining the ceremony with a wheelchair.
Students ranking the highest were presented with plaques and they received their gifts
In the ceremony, students ranking the highest were presented with plaques and they received their gifts. Graduates who ranked in top 3 in under graduation programs are as follows: Huriye Sude Ceşen, Rabia Duman, Sıla Kulaç, Seba Alturkmanı and Mohammad Al-Hammad. Their plaques and gifts were presented by Üsküdar University President Prof. Nevzat Tarhan, Deputy Rector of Üsküdar University Prof. Mehmet Zelka, Üskükdar University Chairman of Board of Trustees Furkan tarhan and Tarhan Foundation Board of Management Member Fırat Tarhan.
Graduates who ranked in top 3 in associate degree programs are as follows: Ebru Güneş, Ülkü Dilli and Sinemiz Kaçar. Their plaques and gifts were presented by Vice Rector and Graduation Organization Coordinator Prof. Sevil Atasoy, Vice Rector Prof. Hikmet Koçak and Rector Advisor, 22nd, 23rd, 24th Deputy Halide İncekara.
He presented diploma to his daughter
Happy memories were experienced during the ceremony. Üsküdar University Department of Industry Engineering Asst. Prof. Hasan Çiçek presented diploma to his daughter Cansu Çiçek who graduated from Clinical Psychology Post Graduation Program.
Dr. Osman Coşkun became a part of joy of her daughter’s graduation
The Presidency of Republic of Türkiye, Council of Science, Technology and Innovation member Dr. Osman Coşkun also became a part of the joy of his daughter’s graduation. Neva Coşkun who graduated from Üsküdar University, Department of Psychology, received her diploma by her father Dr. Osman Coşkun.
Our successful sport teams were presented their plaques
In the ceremony, the sports teams of Üsküdar University, which achieved significant success in their branches, were also presented with plaques. University President Prof. Nevzat Tarhan, Deputy Rector Prof. Mehmet Zelka, Üsküdar University Chairman of the Board of Trustees Furkan Tarhan and Tarhan Foundation Board of Trustees Member Fırat Tarhan presented plaques to teams of football, futsal, female and male basketball, female volleyball and korfball.
At the ceremony where the graduates were invited to the stage in order to receive their diplomas, some graduates received their diplomas with their babies and children.
Graduation oath was recited and caps were thrown
Üsküdar University, Faculty of Medicine Dean Prof. Haydar Sur made graduates recite the graduation oath. Later, graduates threw their caps. The ceremony where exciting and joyful moments were experienced ended with a DJ performance. Graduation ceremony was broadcasted live on ÜU TB and Üsküdar University YouTube channel.
Üsküdar News Agency (ÜNA)