Ayşe SUSAM-2084317

COMMUNITY SERVICE REPORT

 I served 29 hours in the Turkish Education Foundation as part of the Community Service course.
The reason I chose to serve in this institution was because I had a scholarship from this institution
and I had knowledge of the work of the institution. I thought TEV was an institution open to
scientific research. I thought I could do a project in this institution. Together with Özlem Köseoğlu,
we conducted a project in this foundation.

According to TEV’s website, The Turkish Education Foundation was founded on May 4, 1967 by
205 philanthropists who were devoted to education under the leadership of Vehbi Koç. The
foundation and mission of the foundation, the public resources in the day of inadequate, especially
the wealth of our citizens, including the power of everyone in support of the solution of the basic
problems of national education is of great importance. I participated in a meeting in my first study
day. Thanks to this meeting, my knowledge of TEV increased. At this meeting a presentation about
TEV was prepared and I received some notes during this presentation. I learned about TEV's
economic resources. These funds are donations through grants, donations through a testament, TEV
wreaths, personal and corporate donations. One of the things that interest me in this meeting was
about TEV's income sources. I was interested in the wreaths, the most well-known source of TEV.
The number of students attending the funeral wreaths each year is one third of the total number.
TEV aims to increase this effect through happy days. The reason for this is that TEV wants to have
a high impact from each source. For this reason, TEV has produced a design for the use in happy
days. A World Flower of the Turkish Education Foundation is an ideal gift option for individuals
and institutions who prefer to send wreaths while communicating celebration messages and also
bear responsibility for nature.
Following the meeting, topics such as how many students and how much scholarship TEV give on
a monthly basis were discussed. In accordance with its mission, TEV is one of the highest number
of scholarships in the country. In addition to granting scholarships to TEV scholars, they are also
trying to support their transition from educational life to working life in order to support individuals
who are fully prepared. For this purpose, TEV offers several opportunities to its scholars. The first
of these is an educational platform called TEV Academy. This platform, which I am taking
advantage of, enables us to take lessons online. This educational platform was born as a result of
the desire to carry out a study that will cover all the students of TEV. In my opinion, TEV Academy
is very important in terms of offering an equal opportunity between scholars in different provinces.
Scholars can still benefit from the TEV Academy project, which can be accessed through the TEV
website. Communication is provided via e-mail. Students can access the scholarship information.
Each student is informed by e-mail. The dates of the trainings are announced via the same path.
The other opportunity is TEV Mentorink. This platform is a project that provides the most
appropriate match between volunteer alumni and scholars and enables the exchange of knowledge
and experience based on mutual development. I have a mentor as one of the TEV scholars. My
mentor offers me unique practical information, not only in terms of education and career, but also
in the way her life-style. To know someone who continued her education at the same school as me
and is currently studying at METU as a graduate student and spending time with her is one of the
biggest opportunities TEV has ever offered me.

We attended a meeting in our first week at TEV. Thanks to this meeting, we have learned a lot
about TEV. Thus, we had a few ideas in mind about how we can conduct a study in this foundation.
One of them was to contribute to the internship and scholarship project provided to vocational high
school students. But many projects have already taken place in this area. And we, together with my
friend Özlem, have decided to make a study in which we could have the opportunity to apply the
lessons we took in METU. In this course, we conducted a research on TEV. We worked together
with my friend Özlem Köseoğlu. In this study, we used the survey as a data collection tool. We
prepared this survey to measure the satisfaction of TEV scholars. We have limited our research to
TEV METU. Therefore, there is no generalizability of the study as TEV. In this survey, we applied
statistics and research methods lessons. We realized that it would be a good idea to take advantage
of these lessons as we decided on the measures we need to take for the reliability of the survey.
Then, we continued this during the preparation phase of the survey and during the evaluation of
the results. While preparing this questionnaire, we aimed to learn what the students were satisfied
with, and to think about what activities it was useful to participate in. The reason for such a goal is
that TEV's opportunities are taking the time of both TEV and scholars. We wanted to make a report
about the efficiency of the time taken. Together with my friend Özlem, we have created a list of all
the opportunities TEV METU provides to its scholars. Our survey limited the scope of the subject
with the opportunities provided by TEV METU. I chose a few things as a subtitle. These include
the amount of participation in the opportunities and how efficient the possibilities are. I have
designed questions about the purpose for which these possibilities were created and how well they
could fulfill their objectives. I investigated the continuity and numbers of participation in some
opportunities. It took a long part of our work to prepare our questions for the survey because we
had some discussions with TEV Ankara Branch Manager Ömer TURNA. I received feedback from
him. And I also accompanied him in some of the work of TEV. Some of these studies were to write
e-mails to inform people about TEV's work. One of these activities was a marathon where TEV
participated in a scholarship. We wrote an e-mail to some people about this activity and we chose
photos about the activity. We went to TEV's Ankara branch usually on Friday or Monday of the
week. We helped with the studies there and continued our discussions with Ömer TURNA about
the survey. Sometimes we informed him by mail. We continued the majority of the survey studies
with my friend Özlem in our faculty building.

We had difficulty at some points during this survey preparation process. Because there are some
features separating TEV METU. TEV-METU Our Future Scholarship Fund is a different
organization established within TEV. METU FUTURE Project is a special project which has
succeeded to win METU, but provides opportunities for our young people with limited financial
resources and touches their lives. The voluntary work of the project and fund manager Arif
Aygündüz since 2009 makes TEV METU a distinctive one. As a result of the studies of Arif
Aygündüz, mentoring applications become more efficient. Because he can bring the graduates of
a school together with the students of the same school. At the same time, he organizes the meetings
where the graduates of METU participate as speakers. Tev Academy and Language Education
opportunities are provided to all TEV scholars, but these graduate meetings are only subject to
METU TEV. After receiving the feedback of Ömer TURNA and Arif AYGÜNDÜZ on the survey
questions, we started our survey.
These are the questions;

1. Kaç yıldır burs alıyorsunuz?

2. Tev’in bursiyerlerine sağladığı olanaklardan hangileri hakkında bilgi sahibisiniz?
3. Bu olanaklardan hangilerinden faydalandınız?
4. Tev’in kariyer hedeflerini ve isteklerini besleyen bir kurum olduğuna inanıyor musun?
5. Dönem içerisinde düzenlenen ve ODTÜ mezunlarının konuşmacı olduğu toplantıların
size katkıda bulunduğuna inanıyor musunuz?
6. Bu toplantıların sayısının arttırılmasını ister misiniz?
7. Tev Akademi’nin online olması sizi nasıl etkiliyor?
8. Tev Akademi’nin son zamanlarda düzenlediği aşağıdaki eğitimlerden hangilerine
katıldınız?
9. Yararlandığınız mentorluk eğitimleri kendi alanınıza ve gelecekteki iş hayatınıza bakış
açınızı ve bunlarla ilgili düşüncelerinizi değiştirdi mi?
10. Mentörlük eğitimlerini yararlı buluyor musunuz?
11. TEV’den bir bursiyer olarak başka hangi beklenti ve istekleriniz vardır. Lütfen
belirtiniz.

The last one of these questions was open-ended and the others were closed-ended. We paid
attention to keep the survey questions quite short and easily answer. Thanks to the contact
information provided by Ömer TURNA, we were able to contact the scholars. At first we wanted
to do this questionnaire face-to-face, but the disadvantage of such surveys is the low level of
responding to questionnaires or answering questions. Therefore, the sample falls and the reliability
of the questionnaire decreases. We didn't want to do this because we sent people via e-mail.
However, we were able to get very little participation in this case. TEV METU project manager
Arif Aygündüz opened a survey of WhatsApp group. With this method we have achieved many
participations. There were 44 survey participants in the group of 100 participants. According to the
results of the survey, pie slice graphs have been formed about the questions’ answers. The common
views of the scholars are given in these tables. Percentages were used in the creation of these tables.
In the answer to the last open-ended question, we have included direct quotations to reflect the
views of the scholars directly.
According to the results of the survey, the majority of the scholars are satisfied with the
opportunities provided by TEV METU. They believe TEV has contributed to their education and
future careers. There are also issues that students disagree in common. One of these examples is
that the status of TEV Academy online has positive or negative effects. These results were shared
with the authorities. Participating in such a study developed me in many ways as a teacher. One of
them was to continue the project (the survey) with a partner and the employees of the foundation.
I've experienced many effects of running a teamwork. I have seen how some of the lessons I learned
in my school (statistics and research methods) can be applied in practice. And I think the most
important thing was that I had the opportunity to learn things that pleased and motivated the
students. I met a lot of people and had the opportunity to work with them. I'm starting to feel more
motivated about observation and research. In this study, the percentage of participants who
participated in the survey was less than fifty, which reduced the reliability of the questionnaire.
Reaching scholarships and making the survey attractive was the most challenging part for me.
People don't want to take their time for the survey and don't go back to mails. I think this study
makes me more prepared for many things in my future career. In teamwork, I think I can better
adjust the relationship between people and plan my time well. Conducting a survey study helped
me learn different ideas of people and changed my perspective on events. It made me even more
curious and investigative, and I think this is what a teacher needs most. So this work helped me to
discover my energy.