JOURNAL 6 (video reflection-I)

"Another Brick in the Wall" is the title of three songs set to variations of the same basic theme, on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera, The Wall, subtitled Part 1 (working title "Reminiscing"), Part 2 (working title "Education"), and Part 3 (working title "Drugs"). This video belongs to the single called as “Part 2” which is a protest song against rigid schooling in general. We can mention the story by dividing into three parts while commenting on the video. Firstly, teacher reprimands the student for writing poems during lesson and humiliates him by reading his poem aloud and mocking at it. It can be deduced from this scene that conventional education system prevents students from being interested in anything except for memorizing course subjects such as poetry, painting art and music. In other words, the video implies that innovative thinking and producing different things are forbidden under the school roof. Secondly, students get in the line, are put in something like an oven and then, they come out as standardized people. In this scene, it is criticized the existing curriculums causing students to standardize and to think in the constant way. Additionally, students are thrown into a huge mincing machine in following scene in order to symbolize that education system stereotypes children and grinds their brains to give the same shape to all. Lastly, students rebel at teacher by chorusing repeat lines “We don't need no education. We don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teachers leave them kids alone. Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone! All in all it's just another brick in the wall. All in all you're just another brick in the wall”, and they begin to devastate school. In the end, we figure out that all these events are imagined by the scolded student from the beginning. In conclusion, even though whole story is made up of just an imagination of a child, references of the video and the lyrics call on us to think about these hard truths.

JOURNAL 5 (reflection on a particular topic)

In many countries, the football issue always comes to the fore, no matter how serious other agenda topics are, and our country is one of these. Moreover, I believe that football is exaggerated in Turkey. There are three simple explanations about why especially football as a sport is overrated in Turkey. First of all, the lack of investments for other kinds of sports can be shown as a reason. Necessary facilities which the other sports require are not provided sufficiently. However, since football is a sport that everyone can play with the existence of just one ball, it is wide spread among the children all around the country. In other words, the attainability of football is the most distinct reason why football draws everyone’s attention in Turkey. Secondly, for the poor, football is a way out from being poor because they believe that their children could become great players and make a lot of money as a result of becoming a football star. Parents try to send their children to football schools although this dream can be realized by only very few of them. As Cem Karaca says, “Hope is the food of the poor” and football is one of the greatest hopes for them. Lastly, football is a way to overcome their stressful lives for everyone. In other words, anyone watching football and swearing at team which he/she supports would be excused, and so football becomes a commonly used way to relax for many fans. To sum up, when these are considered, it is feasible for football to be overvalued in Turkey and this situation will continue to exist inevitably.

JOURNAL 4

In my opinion, the latest slogan of METU “I brain ODTÜ” is the most effective one by comparison with the ones of others and there are some factors providing this effectiveness. Firstly, it is mentioned that everybody in METU has a worldview underlain by free thought by saying “METU people do not accept any borders or limitations.” and “METU people think freely and express their ideas freely.” If a university dares use the slogan “I brain”, it should provide intellectual freedom to everyone and respect all ideas which are generated in scientific and logical ways. METU definitely answers to this definition. Secondly, the video emphasizes the culture of success and making difference of METU. This culture triggers the desire of thinking differently and productively of students and brings innovation to existing perspectives. So, METU creates brilliant brains which question, investigate and develop in order to create new ideas looking for the most beneficial solutions. And finally, the ending motto of the video “We can change the world” mentions that METU people believe in themselves to be able to change their immediate environment, society and the whole world with the help of the soul of METU called as “ODTÜ’lülük”. To sum up, METU not only uses an assertive and impressive slogan like “I brain ODTÜ”, but makes the best of this assertion by offering quality education environment also.

Error Correction

1. When I first heard that I had been accepted to Middle East Technical University, I was disappointed because I did not like Ankara as a city. But my opinions have changed over time dramatically since Middle East Technical University is really a different world in Ankara.

2. It has been only one month since I came here. However, I got used to this environment. Thanks to the fact that, first of all, people from all of ages in here respect to each other.

3. I love Ankara, my dormitory, my new friends, my department. I am content with everything which are belongs to METU.

4. If someone wants to walk, he or she can walk around in this place. Also, here is nice to meet and spend time with friends.

5. We can easily see this by watching TV, surfing on the internet or maybe just looking around us. Although there are many people getting graduated from different kinds of universities, they are not even able to know what is going on around them or they do not even try to find good ways to improve the countries that they live in.

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JOURNAL 3

A university should have two main characteristics to be an “ideal” university. Firstly, an ideal university should provide the conditions supporting by free thought to students in order to improve themselves in academic manner. In other words, university education must involve all necessary information and methods which enhance and contribute to students’ qualities for their future business or academic studies. Also thanks to environment of free thought students, as being individuals, have ability of self-expression throughout their lives. This brings them in self-confidence during giving a speech or an employment interview. Secondly, an ideal university has to have facilities which enable students to reinforce their social skills. Social clubs are the most common ones of these, i.e. sport clubs and student societies. When these characteristics are considered, METU has both academic and social ones. For example, with METU Library’s advanced written sources, anyone can reach any information in various areas and can enhance her/his academic achievement constantly. And also its academic staff has an important role in quality of METU. Thanks to instructors’ advanced knowledge about their fields and effective methods, students can fill their deficiency of knowledge by questioning and investigating with academic help about any subject and receive perfect education consequently. About social facilities at METU, the student societies and groups organizes various cultural, sports and art events like concerts, exhibitions, performances and conferences every year. Also METU has a great number and a great variety of students clubs-societies, sports clubs and sports teams which provide students with opportunity to improve themselves in any of these. To sum up, METU is the most suitable one to the criteria that I have set for an ideal university and studying at this university will be the best investment to my future undoubtedly.