DEPARTMENT OF TEXTILE ENGINEERING
Textile education and the career, obtained after the end of this education spread over a wide area containing the common ground with the science, technology and art subjects, can be defined as an interdisciplinary structure containing, on one side, textile sciences and textile engineering and on the other side, textile management, textile technology and textile design branches. When these disciplines are investigated in close detail, for example, textile sciences within in itself contain a wide range of subjects including the polymer sciences, fundamental chemistry together with the experimental studies and theoretical simulations and modeling approaches.
Polymer sciences and technologies approach the textile engineering via the fundamental physical and chemical sciences as well as engineering technologies via the processing routes. Whereas the chemical engineering and sciences approach the textile engineering via the applications and the use of the dies and chemicals used in the textile industry.
Basic physics, mathematics and statistics form the association and unity from the point of view of textile modeling and calculations. On the other hand computers and computing softwares form another unity amongst themselves.
Textile engineering contains the product and process design in itself according to the application areas. From this point of view, textile engineering shares the basic concepts with the other fundamental engineering disciplines.
Textile technologies contain the processes needed for the production of the products according to the application areas. This environment contains the parameters somewhere between the fundamental engineering and management subjects.
Textile design contains fundamental art subjects and forms common ground with the textile engineering and Technologies. Textile management contains common ground, on one side, with the economic and administrative sciences,, on the other side, with the textile technology and textile engineering on a smaller scale.
When viewed from another perspective, the textile education can be seen to consist of a very broad range of disciplines or can be seen to follow a very detailed and substantial education in any discipline.
When the textile education in Turkey is considered, the undergraduate programs can be grouped under two distinct categories. The first category consists of textile sciences, technologies and management programs, whereas the second category consists of primarily textile design and apparel (i.e. ready made clothing) programs with some textile fashion programs associated with the faculties of fine art and fine art education.
When the textile departments within the engineering faculties are considered under close observation, except one, one general program is offered with fundamental textile and professional lectures on top of highly diluted and generalized engineering lectures, which in the last two years, offered with optional lectures as an additional variety. In the other case, instead of optional lectures, the undergraduate program is structured with many textile and related professional lectures on top of 3 optional and highly diluted engineering lectures.
In conclusion, due to the interdisciplinary nature, the textile education is spread over a wide area and forms common ground with many different science subjects. This statement is also valid for the textile R&D activities. In practice, there are tens of thousands of small & large, commercially active, regional and national textile companies operating under different branches. These companies earn 1/3 of the national income and employ almost 1/3 of the total workforce in the country. When viewed from the point of view of above arguments, those who select textiles to study, will be offered a lifetime career opportunity during the course of the undergraduate textile programs.
