Community Interviews: Industry and Productivity Community

Could you please provide some brief information about your community?
 
Industry and Productivity Community, established in 2005, is one of the most active and most long-established communities of TOBB ETÜ with its 12 year history. ETÜ EVT has made its mark as one of the most successful and respectable student communities in Turkey for the reputable events it has organized throughout the year in national and local scales as well as its intra-club training activities and social responsibility projects. Currently, ETÜ EVT continues its journey, which it started with 30 members, with some 452 members, 260 of whom are active members, 2 nation-wide organizations, and countless seminars, workshops, technical trips and case analysis contests.  
 
Could you please tell us about your activities?
 
ETÜ EVT organizes 2 main events, titled the Leadership Camp and the Summer School, as well as a number of successful boutique events such as the Lens, the Campus, the Case Analysis and the High School Presentation throughout the year. The Leadership Camp, which will be held for the 8th time in 2018, is a 3-day event at national scale, which brings together over 800 students, including the attendees from more than 100 universities in Turkey, for whom accommodation arrangements are made as necessary, every year. For 3 days; the attendees, who meet up with the prominent companies of the sector during the daytime sessions, have the opportunity to broaden their network by way of the interactive activities organized in the evening. 
 
The Summer School event, held in every May, has, today, become a boutique festival for the students of TOBB ETÜ. The event, which is organized with a rather different range of speakers than those of the Leadership Camp, is comprised of sessions, during which a broad range of interesting subjects from fashion and art to cinema and travel are discussed and famous individuals are hosted as guests. During the Summer School, which lasts for 2 days in total; the attendees have the opportunity to meet with each other through the fun contests held after the sessions while the winner teams of the contests are awarded prizes. While the attendees, who enjoy themselves during the concerts performed by accomplished artists at the night of the 1st day of the Summer School, during which fun times never stop; the event is concluded with a film-screening session in nostalgic open air cinema in order for the attendees to relieve their tiredness on the 2nd day. The Summer School, which has only been held for 3 times so far, has been widely appreciated by the students of TOBB ETÜ, and brought together over 1000 TOBB ETÜ students together in 2017.
 
The Lens, which is held for twice in each semester, and thus held for six times in each academic year, is organized in the form of a series of single-day events, which aim at reinforcing the university-industry cooperation and bring together the prominent, leading companies of the sector with the students in a professional setting. 
 
The Campus is a series of single-day events, which serves as a platform for the addressing and discussion of a broad range of subjects extending from art to sports and science, and during which valued experts on the featured themes are hosted as speakers.
 
Technical Trip events are organized to enable the students of our university to familiarize themselves more closely with and gain comprehensive knowledge about the industries and the departments, in and at which they aim to work. During the trips, the students have the opportunity to learn more about the environment, where they will be working in the future. 
 
How many members actively take part in the community activities? From what departments are your members? Could you please tell us  about member profile of your community?
 
ETÜ EVT, to which any student from any department may affiliate, currently has 452 members, 264 of whom actively participate in the community efforts. The members join the Leadership Camp, the Summer Camp, the Lens, the Campus and the Sponsorship and Publicity teams at their option, and work as a part of the organization teams they select throughout the year.
 
What would you like to say to address your prospect members? Are there any prerequisites to join the community?
 
As any university student, who has been involved in community and club business, would know; a community or a club is, in fact, your family at the university. The friendships made in a community or club lay the foundation for the most long-lasting friendships of the university life. In addition to the social gains; being a part of a community or a club will allow for the gaining of many skills that are essential for professional life such as presentation skills, public speaking and sector-based networking during the university life. There are no prerequisites in place for affiliation to the community; anybody, who wants to be part of the EVT family, is welcome to join us!
 
What are your goals for the community? What kind of activities do you intend to carry out?
 
Our primary objective at ETÜ EVT is to further excel our activities each year and to exceed the previous year's performance. Therefore, we not only aim the best in terms of the speakers to be featured and the sponsors at each even organized, but also aim to reach to a larger number of university students in all over Turkey as attendees of our events every other year.

How do the community activities affect your undergraduate education or career goals?
 
The best advantage to be derived from being a part of a community or a club at the university is to be able make friends also from other departments than your own department. Also, the students get to engage in direct contact with the speakers to be hosted at each event, dive deeply into the industry and conduct corporate sponsorship meetings in a professional setting with actual companies, which are significant opportunities for an undergraduate student in order to learn about the industry closely.  Moreover; being a part of a community or a club provides the individual with such skills as crisis management, team work, ability to embrace both success and failure with the same emotional reaction and being prepared with a B plan at all times. Therefore, communities and clubs, which could be considered as the simulated models of the career life during the undergraduate level, are extremely important entities.