FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

The main purpose of the Marketing Department at GAU is to provide crucial knowledge and opportunities to the students in order to express themselves in rapidly changing innovative and competitive business world. Our curriculum is designed for developing our student’s conceptual and analytical thinking, creative and communicative abilities which comply with contemporary market and industry demands.

Marketing is one of the most significant business functions which focuses on the needs and wants of the organization’s key stakeholders and target audiences. In other words, building a profitable and ethical bridge among all these parts is under the responsibility of marketing function. With this comprehension, the Marketing Department at GAU is formed the content of the courses according to for both understanding consumers and organizational buying patterns and developing long-run successful marketing strategies that follow the latest managerial and technological trends in the world.  It is also aimed at building strong collaboration with both local business community and multinational companies for global experiential learning and shared high level of academic studies.

During the four year programme, students also acquire practical experience in the application of these concepts and methods with the support of departmental advisors.

1. Develop critical and strategic thinking, improve analytic skills and techniques and enhance effective decision-making
2. Demonstrate ability for teamworking, collaboration and leadership
3. Understand social and legal issues both within local and global environments
4. Demonstrate competence in dealing with  a variety of marketing problems using both quantitative and qualitative methods
5. Possess awareness and competency of global issues in marketing
6. Understand the international market environment and E-commerce
7. Acquire proficiency in English and utilize effective communication skills
8. Show ability to create professional-quality marketing plans, business documents and presentations
9. Develop and evaluate the strategies of advertising, public relations and E-marketing practices
10.  Evaluate messages communicated through media and determine the impact of marketing communication on individual behaviour and society as a whole
11.  Gain IT skills which are conducive for research using various resources and databases
12.  Put knowledge acquired into practical experience through on-site internship(s) before graduation
13.  Gain ethical consciousness and behaviour such as consumer rights required by the marketing discipline

On successful completion of the Marketing programme and gain competencies, a student will be awarded the Bachelor of Science in Marketing (240 ECTS).

Faculty of Business and Economics appreciates modern concepts and new methods in education and teaching methods that support educational objectives in addition to traditional methods. Traditional class attendance is compulsory for all courses in the faculty of Business and Economics. A variety of other educational methods are also used depending on the course and instructor. All kinds of practical exercises including the IT based activities are used to support the understanding of theory and to improve practical skills. Using different educational methods is also aiming to increase the interest of students. Traditional class work is an essential way in order to give basic theory (knowledge) on each topic. Therefore at least 75% of class attendance is expected for all of the courses.

Problem solving sections of knowledge based courses are integrated with the discussion and group work sections. There are several ways to conduct group works. Students explain and discuss ideas about any course related case in a class under the supervision of instructors. Practice and discussions on example cases , which mainly used for many courses. Computer softwares are also used extensively in order to enlarge the span of experiments.

Course Projects are very useful to encourage students to use techniques and tools that they learned for solving a specific problem. Students are expected to prepare a report and/or present their projects in front of an audience at the end of the semester. Reading a new article, which is related to the course topic, and presenting its foundations is another method for engaging students’ interest in contemporary issues.

Distance learning system, which is a web based platform (Moodle-Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment-, elearning.gau.edu.tr), is used as course support system since 2007. This system offers many different opportunities in education. Announcing course events and sharing electronic materials are typical usage of the system. This system is a platform that students may be more active than traditional class work and it is an additional option for students to discuss course specific issues with their instructors and colleagues.

Some typical features of Moodle are
-Assignment submission
-Discussion forum
-Files download
-Grading
-Moodle instant messages
-Online calendar
-Online news and announcement (College and course level)
-Online quiz
-Wiki

This system provides transparency and equality for all students and also reduces paper waste. This system is able to direct all messages to the registered e-mail addresses of all members (Students and instructors) of the course similarly to many social networking services. Therefore it is a contemporary way of continuing education out of the classroom by communicating with students and/or planning a variety of web based activities. Usage of distance learning system within the Faculty of Business and Economics varies depending on the course and instructor. Gradually usage of the system increases since all instructors are encouraged to use the distance learning system as effectively as possible.