As mentioned before, I had graduated high-school and took the university entrance exam. I didn’t have hopes to be in the top performing universities but with the above-mediocre grade I received I was legible to a few universities in a programme I had hoped for. I was taking maths & science in high-school so I had my eyes on engineering faculties.
I had first set my goals for something that was new back in 2017-2018: mechatronic engineering -basically a fusion between mechanical and electrical engineering. Most of my other preferences were on mechanical engineering with a couple of software engineering departments sprinkled in.
I had listed 13 universities. I placed in the 7th on my list. METU NCC.
Little did I know that those two words were about to catapult me into adulthood. I mean it’s not like military service or a full time job that I was going to lock myself in for the rest of my life; but around those ages, people tend to view half an hour of their time as eternity. Whereas 4 years of your young adult-life? Try to understand why most Turkish high-school graduates make a big deal of the university exam.
I never thought much about leaving the country for university around that age. Infact, Northern Cyprus wasn’t even in my immediate attention. What happened was that I got an alright-ish university exam score that would struggle to get in to the other universities me & my educators had aimed for, and my guidance teacher at the high-school I was going to suggested I put it in my list, just in case I couldn’t get in to any of the others.
To my luck, that’s where I landed.
I remember my first day getting there. Anxious to start my uni life, far from parents, in an alien land, far away from home… I flew to Nicosia with my parents and we rented a car. I remember leaving the airport, driving. Driving around town, driving out of town, driving in the middle of nowhere, driving through a desert; driving so far that we thought we had gone off-course. We passed few landmarks on the way: There was a supercar dealership and a couple of military museums, but there was literally nothing out there. We drove for more than 2 hours with nothing in-between, and we hadn’t any internet because our mobile operators didn’t cover Northern Cyprus (which is supposed to be a Turkish state, but anyways). Eventually we saw a few short buildings on a slight hill in the middle of a desert. I even laughed and said “There’s no way that that’s the university”… It was…
Faculties? Nope. Just a few “Academic Blocks”, they called them. Dormitories? Not enough to house all the students. Dining facilities? Good luck making the hard decision between the two. Transport? Try catching the one bus that leaves every other hour, conducted by a driver with impaired vision and sometimes doesn’t see the hailers.
It was literally rock bottom. Throughout my entire life people have always told me “Just make it to _____, and you’ll make it easy”. No heavier did that lie hit, than when I realised that I was in the middle of nowhere, far from home, far from family, in the middle of the desert, with literally nothing to do.
I had pondered on every life decision that I made that got me to that point, and I decided that I wanted to go back home. But what was I going to do? Work for the local electrician for a quarter of what I’d be paid at a real job? No. I consulted my parents, and I rethought my decisions, and decided that I was atleast going to give it a chance.
Keep in mind that I’ve only spoke about location, I haven’t even started about academics yet.
So there I am, in a cramped room with 3 hormonal lads in a room of a brutalist-structure inspired dorm. The university had some great facilities for newcomers to “fit-in” to their new environment like social activities and orientation training. Still, home is where the heart is.
It turns out I’m really good at 3 dimensional thinking, designing and problem-solving. Which was a blessing considering that I was terrible at everything else like advanced mathematics & physics. See, I had graduated from a Turkish high-school, where we were taught all mathematical formulas and scientific terminology in Turkish. METU was an American-inspired university, where they held all their exams in the American standard. This was a colossal problem for most of the Turkish lads in our class (which made up around 50% of the classroom, but we’ll get back to that later) as they had been through the same high-school curriculum as I did. Although nothing a little bit of elbow grease & a can-do attitude couldn’t fix.
Year 1 was spent with me mostly adapting to my environment. It was harsh considering that everyone had their own unique background. Most had exceptionally wealthy families, many with “connections”. Maybe half of the students were foreigners: Pakistani, African, Middle Eastern, etc. There was very little I could relate to these people. I had made some good friends along the way, though.
So in comes the report card. 1,74 (unsatisfactory). I seriously don’t know where I went wrong, all my grades were coming up good, I had adapted to the academic flow of things; but it wasn’t enough. It turns out that almost all of the exams were graded through the bell curve. So I would get an 84% on a crucial mechanical part engineering course, but because of a few over-achievers, I would get a C- grade. I was 1 year deep in university when I learnt about this little fact.
As to why the bell curve was so high, as I mentioned, METU NCC teaches engineering at the American standard; and with so many people that came to the island with A-levels, SAT’s and other advanced examination standards, myself along with the other Turkish students couldn’t catch up. I reflect on some of the students taking the same year 1 courses with me that were on their 7th or 8th year there. How the hell were they still planning to graduate in a total of 10+ years!?
Frustration through the roof, I soldiered on. Second year. I wasn’t aware of the absolute fecal-storm coming my way. I had moved in to a kosher 1+1 apartment, I had “refined” my selection of a social circle, and I had got my academic life on track for the most part.
Keep in mind that I was marked as an “unsatisfactory” student. Which means if I failed another semester, my scholarship would be cancelled and I would be held to pay the full amount of tuition; not to mention rent & bills on the side.
Enter stage left, fluid mechanics, advanced thermodynamics & advanced part design.
These three courses were something else. No amount of preparation would’ve got me ready for these courses. It wasn’t a challenge, it was a kind reminder that I was not welcome to this caliber of education. I remember studying one night with a friend over, tea in hand, book in the other, and I just couldn’t comprehend the most basic concepts of what I was studying. I remember the weather rainy, and almost in admittance of defeat, I calmly went to the balcony, took a deep breath, and I made the call that would end my misery once and for all.
I knew that mechanical engineering wasn’t going anywhere for me. One could argue that strength comes from struggle, and no achievement isn’t without its obstacles; but to constantly be met with one barrier after another, I had had enough. Northern Cyprus had had enough of me, and I with her. My social life was questionably tame, and with 45 hours of courses a week, I hadn’t had time to relax, socialise; at some times even groom myself or even sleep.
I never regret the day I added METU NCC to my university preference list; it was one of the harshest wake-up calls that I needed. I learnt about grown-up social interactions, personal hygiene, how to hold a house, how to manage stress, and how to keep my cool even at the most challenging of tasks.
Til this day I still look at that “call” to drop out of engineering as one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. After all, I wouldn’t have made honours list in Muğla with a 3,11 GPA if I decided to prolong the torture that was engineering.
Some argue that I would’ve had a better career, had I stayed. And to that I would just like to present literally tens of testimonies of graduates that told me I made a good call. Friends that work in the defence industry, friends that work in chop shops, friends that work for big design companies… They all tell me that they have little-to-no social life; infact hardly any quality-of-life at all. Their careers, mundane at best.
I often reflect on what the average engineer looks like. Ungroomed hair & beard, lack of social skills, sunk-in eyes from lieu of sleep, extremely unsociable. This isn’t a dig towards engineers; I’m just pointing out that with a 48-hour weekly work programme in year 1, semester 1, what else could you expect.
Most of our physics, mathematics & chemistry professors were sweethearts deep down. They were no foreigner to make small chat and crack a joke in class; bless them. But lurking in the dark corners of the engineering laboratories were the subject area professors.
Granted the career path I went down isn’t the most profitable; but am I grateful for turning out the way I did? I haven’t lost my marbles, I have immaculate conversational & dictational skills, I’m fit, well groomed and well dressed. I see life clearer thanks to past mistakes. I am a very, very grateful graduate.
Thank you Middle Eastern Technical University, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be able to find myself. It’s just such a shame that I wasn’t able to find myself in engineering.
Let go, or be dragged.
Tarkan Alpay 