As the oldest engineering branch still in practice, Civil Engineering deals with the planning, design, construction, maintenance, renewal and recycling of all infrastructure components including buildings, bridges, tunnels, roadways, subways, railways, harbors, airports, dams and waterways, pipeline systems, earth retaining structures, foundations, water and sanitation systems, and energy production and distribution systems.
Established in 1773, Istanbul Technical University is the most rooted engineering school in Turkey, the graduates of which have had a strong hand in the building of modern Turkey. Countless major Civil Engineering systems in Turkey were built by the graduates of Civil Engineering Department at ITU. Next to thousands of competent and hardworking civil engineers in public and private sectors, our alumni to date include heads of multinational construction companies, ministers, and even prime minister and president.
ITU Civil Engineering Department has successfully undertaken its mission to educate top quality civil engineers in the past and in present by adapting to the changes in education and technology while respecting traditions, maintaining the largest and most competent faculty profile, continuously developing and updating the educational and research infrastructure, focusing more on innovation and entrepreneurship, and placing greater emphasis on internationalization and international collaboration.
Department of Geomatics Engineering (formerly known as Geodesy and Photogrammetry Engineering) was founded functioning under ITU, Faculty of Civil Engineering in 1969. With 57 academic staff on duty, the department is giving the degree of "Geomatics Engineer" to the graduates of its 4-year undergraduate program. Non-thesis master's, master's, and doctorate degrees in related fields are also offered by the department.
Our department is the first department in its discipline to fulfill ABET accreditation in Turkey and has been maintaining education activities in conformity with equivalent departments of the most advanced universities in the world with continuous efforts of the quality assurance commissions within.
Geomatics Engineering is one of the fastest growing disciplines in the world covering topics like geodesy, surveying, photogrammetry, remote sensing, spatial information systems, global positioning systems, cartography, and database management systems.
Environmental Engineering Department (EED) of Istanbul Technical University (ITU), being one of the leading departments of Turkish Republic (TR) in the field of environmental engineering education and research, had first started as a graduate program in 1973 within the School of Civil Engineering, and the department itself was established in 1975, followed by the initiation of the undergraduate program in 1978. In 1978, the undergraduate program had started with a group of staff consisting of 2 Professors, 4 Research Assistants with Ph.D. degrees and of 4 assistants conducting their graduate studies.
Until July 2004, about 1326 environmental engineering students have completed the four-year undergraduate program to receive B.Sc. degrees from the Environmental Engineering Department (EED), together with 330 M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees. Currently, the Department has 215 undergraduates, 85 M.Sc. and 45 Ph.D. students registered as of July 2004.
The Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Program accepts about 50 students every year including the first rank students from reputable high schools of the country and foreign students.
The graduates of the Department have leading roles in the related industries and in academia. There is a significant number of graduates continuing their graduate studies both in the country and abroad. The members of the Environmental Engineering Department have always been at the forefront of the developments in ITU. The department had promoted and practiced the English-Supported Education (ESE), which was initiated in the 1989-1990 academic year, and contributed to its coordination throughout the University. ESE was an option, in which the students, who chose to pursue this path, took 25 extra credits of elective courses taught in English. Compulsory bilingual education was started in the 1997-1998 Academic year. With that, at least 30% of the total credits required for the undergraduate degree are to be taken from courses taught in English.
At that time, a revised undergraduate curriculum, with respect to its basic sciences, engineering sciences, engineering design, and humanities contents, was initiated in order to comply with the requirements of a contemporary engineering education. Total number of credits required for the undergraduate environmental engineering degree was decreased from 169 to 151.5 and the ratio of elective to compulsory courses in the curriculum was increased.
Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Program successfully completed ABET 2000EC Substantial Equivalency process in July 2004. The studies for renewal of accreditation have restarted in 2009. The department completed the Self Study Report in July 2010 and waiting for the visit from ABET program evaluators in November 2010.