ERASMUS EXCHANGE PROGRAMS AND APPROACHES FOR ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION

The Erasmus Program is a European Union program aimed at promoting the multi-faceted cooperation of higher education institutions in Europe.

Within the scope of the Erasmus program, academic collaborations (cultural collaborations, research projects, curriculum development studies, etc.), student exchanges (short-term education abroad, cultural cohesion, etc.) and in graduate and undergraduate education are being highlighted under the European point of view.

Since 2004, Turkey has begun to take part in the Erasmus program and data according to the Anadolu Agency, in this 14-year period, approximately 450,000 people benefited from this program.

Yildiz Technical University, an important state university in Istanbul, Turkey is actively involved in the Erasmus program since the beginning of the process with its different faculties.

In 2006-2007, the number of bilateral agreements with 18 architecture schools from different countries of Europe increased to 38 in 2018-2019.

The number of students outgoing between 2006 and 2016 varies between 27 and 48, and the number of incoming students ranges from 5 to 51.

In the 10-year period, the number of outgoing students reached 347 and the number of incoming students reached 275.
The multidimensional co-existence and universal structure of the architectural profession allows the students to intensely explore European countries, to recognize different cultures, to see and to explore the built environments, through the Erasmus program.

Within the scope of the paper, the results of the studies or lectures carried out with the help of the Erasmus student exchange program will be discussed compared with the education of the Architecture Department of Yildiz Technical University.

The aim of the study is to present the differences and similarities of the theoretical courses and project courses in exchange programs and students options on the importance of the Erasmus program by the written evaluations and bilateral discussions with the students.

It is thought that the results of these feedbacks and evaluations will give important contribution to the development of educational curricula.
Within the scope of the paper, it will be tried to reveal briefly the importance of Erasmus exchange programs, which are felt to be less effective in recent years due to different sociological, political and global reasons, in the context of evaluations of students.