Middle East Technical University

Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish, Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, ODTÜ) is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey. The university focuses on research and education in engineering, natural sciences and social sciences, offering 41 undergraduate programs across five faculties and 105 master's and 70 doctoral programs through five graduate schools. The main campus of METU spans an area of 11,100 acres (4,500 ha), comprising, in addition to academic and auxiliary facilities, a forest area of 7,500 acres (3,000 ha), and the natural Lake Eymir. METU has more than 120,000 alumni worldwide. The official language of instruction at METU is English.
Over one third of the 1,000 highest scoring students in the national university entrance examination choose to enroll in METU; most of its departments accept the top 0.1% of the nearly 3 million applicants. METU had the greatest share in national research funding by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) in the last five years, and it is the leading university in Turkey in terms of the number of European Union Framework Programme (FP) projects participation. Over 40% of METU's undergraduate alumni choose to pursue graduate studies.
In 1954, Charles Abrams from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, commissioned by the United Nations to study housing issues and the state of architectural, urban and regional planning education in the Middle East, visited Turkey. Upon completing his survey, Abrams submitted a report to the UN recommending the establishment of a technological institute in Turkey to provide education in architecture and planning. Subsequently, the UN assigned G. Holmes Perkins from the University of Pennsylvania to assist in establishing an institute that would train Turkish architects and urban-regional planners.
Middle East Technical University was founded under the name "Orta Doğu Teknoloji Enstitüsü" (English: Middle East Institute of Technology) on November 15, 1956, by then Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, the Director-General of Highways Vecdi Diker, and a group of academics. The university was established to contribute to the development of Turkey and the surrounding regions of the Middle East, Balkans, and Caucasus by fostering skilled professionals in the natural science. "Arrangements and Procedures as for the Foundation of METU, Law No 6213" was enacted on January 22, 1957, whereby the current name "Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi" (ODTÜ) was adopted. Finally, the "Foundation Act No 7907", setting forth the particular standing of METU and establishing it as a juridical entity, was enacted on May 27, 1959.
During the legislative discussions regarding METU, the establishment law was debated in parliament. Democrat Party deputy Münib Hayri Ürgüplü emphasized that "in a period marked by various ideological threats in the Middle East, the university would play a crucial role by educating young people armed with the profound truths of science to effectively confront these challenges". During the legislative discussions regarding the laws for Middle East Technical University, Zakar Tarver, a Democrat Party member of parliament and of Armenian descent, proposed that the university be exempt from all types of taxation.
The governance of METU was distinctively structured under a Board of Trustees, initially composed of five members, unlike any other institute managed by the Ministry of National Education. Temporary directorship was assumed by Thomas Godfrey until March 1959, with Marvin Sevely also part of the initial foreign faculty.
METU initially started with programs in Architecture and City Planning during the 1956-1957 academic year and expanded to include Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, and programs under the Faculty of Administrative Sciences such as Business Administration, Public Administration, and Industrial Management in subsequent years. Classes were initially held in a small building owned by the Retirement Fund in Kızılay and barracks near the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
In its early days, Middle East Technical University, initially heavily criticized due to its humble facilities resembling a middle school building, quickly embarked on efforts to establish its own campus. Although the campus location had not been finalized, a plan proposed by G. Holmes Perkins was accepted. Amid considerations to use either the lands behind Yalıncak Village or the buildings of the Etimesgut Sugar Factory for the campus site, the government pressed for immediate foundation laying. Consequently, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Yalıncak Village on October 2, 1957, attended by nearly all ambassadors in Ankara, then-President Celal Bayar, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, and other ministers. The first chairman of the METU Board of Trustees, Vecdi Diker, had brought an excavator from the General Directorate of Highways to commence the digging. At the start of the 1957–1958 academic year, the Faculty of Architecture, the Faculty of Engineering, and the Faculty of Administrative Sciences were established. In 1959, the establishment of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was completed. Within the framework of Perkins’ campus plan, the first building designated was the Faculty of Administrative Sciences, and in 1959, a Turkish team comprising Dr. Turgut Cansever, Ertürk Yener, and Mehmet Tataroğlu won an international design competition for it. However, the project was put on hold as the campus location was still not definitively established.
The 1960 Turkish coup d'état led to significant upheaval at METU. Then-Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, a member of the METU Board of Trustees, and MP Ahmet Tokuş were arrested and expelled from the board, spreading fears of the university's potential closure. Colonel Sami Küçük, a member of the National Unity Committee, opposed other junta members who wanted the university closed, arguing it was Adnan Menderes' project, and ensured that educational activities at METU continued. In March 1959, Willis Raymond Woolrich, who also served as the dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas, was dismissed as an advisory rector following a law passed in August 1960 that terminated the Board of Trustees' mandate. After Woolrich's rectorship, Edwin S. Burdell, who previously served as president of the Cooper Union for 22 years and as the first dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took on the role of president at METU. After Burdell's period, Prof. Dr. Turhan Feyzioğlu was appointed as the first Turkish rector of METU. During his speech at the opening ceremony, Rector Feyzioğlu emphasized, "Middle East Technical University is entirely a Turkish university." In June 1960, METU graduated its first class, comprising 30 students including 11 from Mechanical Engineering and 19 from Architecture, and the top student was awarded a prize of 1000 lira along with a plaque.
On October 27, 1960, in response to the military government's decision under Law No. 114 to expel 147 academic staff members from universities, an event known as the 147 Incident, many rectors and faculty members, including Feyzioğlu, resigned in protest; however, Feyzioğlu's resignation was not accepted, and he continued in his role. After Feyzioğlu was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in January 1961, he was succeeded as rector by Prof. Dr. Seha Meray on February 23, 1961. Shortly after Meray's appointment, the university witnessed a student boycott due to uncertainties about the recognition of diplomas and concerns over educational facilities. The boycott ended following discussions with the rector. Meray served as rector for about three months before resigning due to illness, and his duties were temporarily assumed by Uğur Ersoy. After Ersoy's resignation in August 1961, Associate Professor Arif Payaslıoğlu took over for two months.
On April 26, 1961, the Board of Trustees decided on Aşağı Balgat for the new campus, and a new national competition with an international jury was organized. The winning project was by Behruz Çinici and Altuğ Çinici, announced in September 1961. Kemal Kurdaş, who became rector on November 22, 1961, prioritized the campus construction. Initial plans included the Architecture Faculty, laboratories for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the rectorate building, the first section of the dining hall, and two dormitory buildings. On December 3, 1961, the first tree-planting activities at METU took place, with students planting 135,000 saplings. During the initial surveys near Yalıncak Village, Kemal Kurdaş identified remnants of historical structures and artifacts, indicating the site's archaeological importance. This discovery was reported to the Ministry of National Education, the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, and the Ankara Archaeology Museum, now known as the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. Subsequently, archaeological excavations were initiated under the direction of archaeologist Burhan Tezcan.
Despite constraints in faculty and infrastructure, METU established departments of mathematics, physics, theoretical physics, chemistry, education, humanities, and psychology, along with a preparatory class, in 1961. The construction blueprint for the campus was finalized in January 1962, prioritizing the completion of the Architecture Faculty and infrastructure tunnels within the first two years. The cornerstone laying ceremony for the Architecture Faculty building took place on May 11, 1962, attended by then-President Cemal Gürsel. Decisions were made to relocate the preparatory class to the new campus, and by summer 1962, four temporary barracks had been constructed to facilitate this transition. The preparatory class began its activities at the new location in October 1962, marking it as the first academic unit to move to the campus. The preparatory class was later formalized into a Preparatory School by the Board of Trustees. Extensive tree-planting activities followed, with over 1.5 million trees planted by the rector and students. By the academic year 1961-62, student enrollment at METU reached 1,025, increasing to 1,274 by the 1962-63 academic year. The Architecture Faculty building, which cost 12.5 million lira, became operational on September 30, 1963. The new campus was officially inaugurated on October 1, 1963, with a ceremony attended by then-Prime Minister İsmet İnönü. By the start of the 1963-64 academic year, a significant portion of the university had transitioned to the new campus, hosting 1,893 Turkish and 167 foreign students, taught by 310 Turkish and 56 foreign faculty members. From this cohort, 158 undergraduate and 59 graduate students graduated.
The METU Library, established in 1956 with a donation of 50 books from the United Nations, began offering services that same year. By 1957, the library staff comprised Füruzan Olşen and Solmaz İzdemir, who both had received master's degrees in librarianship in the United States. On January 4, 1958, to organize the library in a contemporary sense, UNESCO expert Natelle Isley was appointed as the library director. In March 1958, under the foundational principles concerning the library's organization, the American Library of Congress Classification System was adopted. This made METU Library the first in Turkey to utilize a system now commonly employed by many university and research libraries across the country.
In July 1959, UNESCO expert Donald A. Redmond took over as library director. During the tenure of D. R. Kalia, the third director appointed in 1961, the idea of establishing a central library on campus was proposed and accepted in October 1961. William W. Bennett, the fourth and final UNESCO expert, began his tenure as library director in 1962. In September 1962, Paul Wasserman, Director of Libraries at Cornell University, visited Turkey to assess the development of the METU Library and prepared a report that helped secure a financial grant of $30,500 through the AID Cornell project. The year 1963 was primarily dedicated to the completion of campus construction, including the architectural planning of the METU Library. The library's design, still in use today, was developed by architect Behruz Çinici. As UNESCO assistance was concluding, further support was received from CENTO, OECD, and later the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with the most significant being from USAID. Out of the $4.5 million allocated to the university by USAID, Kemal Kurdaş dedicated $1.5 million to the library. Dr. Robert Downs, Dean of the Library Science Department and Director of Libraries at the University of Illinois, visited and wrote a highly positive report. The library also houses collections named in honor of significant figures, including the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and a collection donated by the British Government in memory of Winston Churchill. This latter donation added 1,000 volumes to the library's collection, increasing it to 50,000 volumes by the end of 1965.
By the 1963-64 academic years, the total area of completed buildings on campus had exceeded 67,000 square meters. In 1964, the METU Computer Center was established to support administrative data processes, equipped with computers, printers, sorters, and punch card preparation machines. Later that year, a decision was made to enhance the center's role in academic support, leading to the invitation of Turkish academics Dr. Şenol Utku and Dr. Cenap Oran from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to assist in setting up a computer system. The team opted to lease an IBM 1620 computer system, widely used in American universities, which was installed at the Physics Department in 1965. In the same year, following a competition held to place a monument on campus, the winning Atatürk Monument along with the second-placed Tree of Science were installed at Middle East Technical University.
In 1967, METU focused intensively on scientific projects, conducting 219 projects during the year and receiving the highest number of awards from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). At the beginning of the academic year, the university enrolled 1,843 new students using a newly implemented testing method, raising the total student population to 5,127. The faculty increased by 20% to 607 members, and new departments such as Theoretical Chemistry and Computer Sciences were established, alongside the Modern Biology Option. The construction of the Central Library was completed, and 14,620 new books were added. The library's holdings of scientific journals and periodicals rose to 1,456.
In the same year, under the presidency of Rector Kurdaş, the Committee to Rescue and Evaluate Historical Artifacts that Will Be Submerged by the Keban Dam Lake was established, launching an eight-year comprehensive study of the Keban region's archaeology, history, architecture, ethnography, folklore, music, and language, with a particular focus on rescuing archaeological artifacts at risk of submersion due to the dam construction.
In July 1987, following the completion of Rector Gönlübol's term, Prof. Dr. Ömer Saatçioğlu, a faculty member from the Department of Industrial Engineering, was appointed as the rector of METU. In 1988, the University Senate designated May 27th as "METU Day" based on the original enactment date of METU's founding law, and decided to celebrate this day annually with a ceremony. Since then, METU Day has been celebrated on the last working day of the week in which May 27th falls. In 1989, the first Alumni Day, which later became a tradition, was organized, honoring alumni who had reached the 30th anniversary of their graduation with plaques. That same year, the university significantly expanded its computing capacity, reaching a total of one thousand personal computers, established a fiber optic network, and connected to international networks.
In 1987, preliminary work began on establishing a science park, known as Teknokent, aimed at supporting technology-based companies. This initiative led to the opening of the Technology Development Center (TEKMER) in 1990, following a collaboration agreement with the Small and Medium Industry Development Organization.
On July 7, 1992, a law was passed to abolish the system of rector appointments by the Council of Higher Education, transitioning to the current electoral system for selecting rectors. Following the end of Ömer Saatçioğlu's term in September 1992, the first elections under this new system resulted in the appointment of Prof. Dr. Süha Sevük, a faculty member from the Department of Civil Engineering, as the rector. That year also saw the establishment of the BİLTİR Center, which included Turkey's first CAD/CAM Laboratory, under the auspices of the rectorate.
On April 12, 1993, Turkey's first internet connection was established through a 64 Kbps leased line between Ankara and Washington, facilitated by the routers in the METU Computer Center. This achievement led to the creation of Turkey's first internet pages with a .tr domain. In 1994, with the support of Rector Sevük and Secretary-General Mehmet Çalışkan, efforts to establish Radio METU began, and broadcasting started in 1995 on frequency 103.1 FM. Rector Süha Sevük was reelected on June 25, 1996.
In 1998, the METU Development Foundation initiated a project to establish schools across Anatolia, starting with schools in Ankara, Kayseri, Denizli, Mersin and İzmir, with plans to increase the number of schools to between 10 and 12. On November 19, 1998, following a protocol signed with the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces and the Defence Industry Agency, the MODSİM-LAB was established. The laboratory, located in a new building on the campus, was operational by June 24, 1999, as a Research and Development Laboratory and later attained center status, becoming known as METU-Turkish Armed Forces MODSİMMER (Modeling and Simulation Applications Research Center).
Following the devastating Marmara earthquake on August 17, 1999, which resulted in approximately 18,000 fatalities, METU established a crisis management center and initiated the METU Earthquake Relief Campaign. During this campaign, METU dormitories were opened to those affected by the disaster, and the METU Earthquake Scholarship campaign was launched to support students at primary, secondary, and university levels.
In early 2000, METU, along with leading Turkish universities including Bilkent, Boğaziçi, Hacettepe, İTÜ, Koç and Sabancı, formed the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium to enhance the global information network access for Turkish academics and students and to support education and research through library resources. At the same time, an inventory of all software/hardware/embedded systems owned by the METU Computer Center was compiled, and compatibility studies for the year 2000 were conducted. On August 7, 2000, following the end of Süha Sevük's term, elections led to the appointment of Prof. Dr. Ural Akbulut, a faculty member from the Department of Chemistry, as rector.
In 2001, the State Planning Organization approved the Faculty Development Project, providing 14 million Turkish Lira in funding. That same year, the Technology Development Zones Law was passed by the Grand National Assembly, establishing METU Teknokent as Turkey's first technology park. In June 2002, METU, together with Ankara University, İTÜ, Boğaziçi University and Bilkent University, formed the Inter-University European Union Initiative to collaborate on EU projects. This initiative organized 12 workshops under the 7 main themes of the 6th Framework Programs and started efforts to create national networks across the country. METU became the first European university to achieve equivalence under the new criteria of the American accreditation body ABET, accrediting all its engineering programs in Turkey, and by 2003, it was one of only two universities in Turkey with fully accredited engineering programs.
The establishment laws for the Northern Cyprus Campus were passed by the Assembly of the Republic of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 2003, granting it legal entity status and marking the beginning of its educational activities. On December 8, 2004, the Central Laboratory was inaugurated as the Education, Measurement, Molecular Biology, and Biotechnology R&D Centers. In 2005, 5 million Turkish Lira was allocated for projects under the Expanded National and International Projects (ENIP) scheme, and significant progress was made in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Smart Glass, and Raw Material for Rental Medicines ENIP projects, reaching the product and patent stages. The METU Science and Technology Museum also opened its doors in 2005.
METU has 42 academic departments, most of which are organised into 5 faculties. These are responsible for the undergraduate programs.
In addition to these, there are the Department of Basic English and the Department of Modern Languages in the School of Foreign Languages; the Technical Vocational School of Higher Education; and, bound directly to the President's Office, the Department of Turkish Language and the Department of Music and Fine Arts.
The 5 graduate schools present in METU are responsible for the graduate programs.
As of 2020, METU has approximately 27,000 students, of which 19,700 are enrolled in undergraduate programs, 4,700 in masters, and 3,000 in doctorate programs. A further 1,500 students are attending programs in the new Northern Cyprus Campus. Over 40% of METU's students go on to graduate school. Each academic year, METU hosts over 1,700 regular international students from 94 different countries; and through 168 Erasmus Programme agreements and 182 bilateral exchange and cooperation agreements with universities abroad (e.g. in Central Asia, Middle East, North America, Australia, Far East and Pacific Region), it sends 350 students and receives 300 students and 50 researchers annually. As of 2023, the university employs 2,603 faculty (professors and associate professors), 479 academic instructors, and over 708 research assistants. The number of the alumni exceeds 500,000 (about 350,000 having completed undergraduate programs).
METU has about 40 undergraduate programs within the faculties of Engineering, Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Economic and Administrative Sciences, and Education, and there are 97 masters and 62 doctorate programs available in the graduate schools of Natural and Applied Sciences, Social Sciences, Informatics, Applied Mathematics, and Marine Sciences. METU commonly ranks close to the top among research universities in Turkey, with over one third of the 1,000 highest scoring students in the national university entrance examination choosing to enroll; and most of its departments accepting the top 0.1% of the nearly 1.5 million applicants. In the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities published in July 2009, aiming to measure through web-based publications the institution size, research output, and impact, METU ranked as the world's 435th (1st place within Turkey) among 15,000 universities, being the only university from Turkey to get included among the top 500. Recently, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings published in September 2016 placed METU at the 501–600th position worldwide based on indicators of teaching, research, influence, innovation, and international character, making it one of the six universities from Turkey listed among the top 600 (the other being Bilkent University at number 351–400). The QS World University Rankings 2010 by Quacquarelli Symonds ranked METU as 185th worldwide in the field of engineering and technology, and as 333rd in the field of natural sciences.
The language of instruction at METU is English. All enrolled students are required to have a degree of proficiency in English for academic purposes, and this is assured by a proficiency examination before the commence of studies. Students with unsatisfactory knowledge of English follow a preparatory English education for one year, given by the METU School of Foreign Languages. Two exceptions instructed in Turkish are the Turkish language and the history of Turkish revolution courses mandated by the Council of Higher Education.
Researchers from METU actively take part in many COST, EUREKA, NASA, NATO, NSF, UN, World Bank, Jean Monnet, Erasmus Mundus, Leonardo and SOCRATES projects. METU has been involved in 56 European Union 6th Framework Programme (FP6) projects, including the coordination of 12 FP6 and 3 Networks of Excellence projects. Within the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), 33 research projects involve participation of METU, since 2007.
As of 2020, METU has 22 international joint degree programmes with European and American universities at the undergraduate and graduate levels. METU is a member of various associations and networks dealing with international education and exchange, including EUA, EAIE, IIE, GE3, SEFI, and CIEE. The university also actively participates in AIESEC and IAESTE summer internship programs. English as the language of instruction in all its degree programs has greatly facilitated METU's international involvements and accommodation of international students and researchers.
METU continually goes through external assessment, accreditation, and certification by international organizations. In 1991, METU initiated a long-term program to have its engineering programs evaluated by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the recognized U.S. accreditor of college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. This process was concluded with the Faculty of Engineering having all its thirteen undergraduate programs declared as "substantially equivalent" to the ABET accredited programs in the USA. The university has completed the evaluation process of Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) of the European University Association (EUA) in 2002.
Because of METU's effort to maintain international standards, the Faculty of Engineering was awarded in 1977 the "Silver Badge of Honor" by the UNESCO International Center for Engineering Education and the "Meritorious Achievement Award in Accreditation Activities" by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). METU was awarded the international Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1995 for its forestation program.
Being the pioneer institution of the country to connect to the Internet backbone in the early 1990s, METU also manages Turkey's Country Code Top-level Domain (ccTLD) (the ".tr" domain).
The METU Main Library has one of the largest collections in Turkey, containing over 500,000 books classified according to the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) scheme. The library subscribes to 1,500 print journals (170,270 volumes) and it provides access to 76,671 electronic journals, 587,493 electronic books, and 66 electronic reference sources. The library collections also hold over 1,780 book and serial CDs, 1,300 doctoral dissertations and 11,600 masters theses. Abstracts for doctoral dissertations and some master theses from North American colleges and universities and some accredited international universities are also provided, starting from 1861, with full texts available from the year 1997. The library's collections are predominantly in English, but there are also items in Turkish, German, and French.
METU main campus in Ankara, used by the university since 1963, is the first university campus of Turkey. It is situated about 10 km west of central Ankara and encompasses an area of 11,100 acres (4,500 ha), of which 7,500 acres (3,000 ha) constitute the METU Forest. The campus grounds was transformed into a forest with the continuing help of students and volunteers since the foundation of the university. The creation of this distinctive campus with its forest was spearheaded by the METU rector from 1961 to 1969, Kemal Kurdaş.
Lake Eymir near Gölbaşı, located 15 kilometers from the academic portion of the campus, is used by the students and faculty for rowing and recreational activities. The campus is accessible by several types of public transport, and the construction of METU subway station of the Ankara Metro on the main entrance to the campus (gate A1) was completed in 2014.
The METU Northern Cyprus Campus, the first overseas campus of a Turkish university, 50 km west of North Nicosia in Northern Cyprus, admitted its first students during the academic year 2002–2003, but the doors were officially opened in Northern Cyprus in September 2005.
The METU Erdemli campus in Mersin Province on the Mediterranean coast, used by the Middle East Technical University Institute of Marine Sciences since 1975, is the first campus of METU outside of Ankara. It is situated about 45 km from Mersin. The campus area is 660,000 m, close to the shore and surrounded by lemon trees. The laboratory space is about 700 m. METU-IMS Harbor is an important shelter for marine biological diversity on the Mersin coast. The harbor is the only intact rocky habitat along the long sandy coast.
METU Teknokent, or ODTÜ Teknokent, is the first science and research park in Turkey. Founded within the campus, it aims to facilitate the development of companies that conduct substantial research and development to produce high-tech products and services through benefiting from METU's research capacity and information pool. Priority is given to companies executing research and development work on information technologies, advanced materials, energy, automotive, chemistry, biology and environment technologies.
As of 2009, the METU Teknokent project employs about 3,300 personnel, approximately 2,700 of whom are researchers (86% of the total staff are university graduates, and 23% have MSc, MA, or PhD degrees), working in 240 firms. Around 90% of the firms are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), 65% of these are specialized in information and communication technologies, 25% in electronics, and 15% in other sectors such as aerospace, environment, bio-technology, nanotechnology, and advanced materials. The company profile also includes multinationals such as SBS, MAN, Cisco, and Siemens. To promote entrepreneurship and innovation, the incubation center at the METU Teknokent serves 38 start-ups and micro sized companies, most of which start their life as spin-offs from METU research projects.
METU Teknokent hosts partners to several European Union Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) projects, such as NICE, SINCERE, ReSIST, SmeInnov8gate and IP4INNO.
The student life at METU is marked with activities of student societies, frequent political protests, and festivals. The Cultural and Convention Center continually hosts a wide spectrum of cultural events and also regular occurrences such as the METU Jazz Days and METU Art Festival. The event with the largest number of participants is the annual METU Spring Festival, a five-day-long series of open-air concerts and exhibitions held at the main campus.
There are various traits shared by METU students, including the usage of an English–Turkish jargon (METUrkish, ODTÜrkçe as once named by an alumnus artist in an art project) which apparently stems from the fact that English is the language of instruction covering academic processes and student life (and blending into campus language similar to Persian, Arabic and later French in the past blended into Turkish to form Ottoman technical language), which reputedly is not liked much by the students of other universities; and the omnipresent word "Hocam" (meaning "My Teacher"), which is used by METU students to address anyone from bus drivers to senior faculty members. Underneath this phrase lies the philosophy that everyone has something to learn from each other.
The main campus has dormitory capacity for nearly 7,000 students who benefit from the shopping center, banks, post office, and a wide variety of sports facilities, including gymnasiums, tennis courts, basketball and football fields, jogging trails, Olympic-size indoor swimming pool, and an outdoor swimming pool.
There are numerous student organizations active in METU. Some of these are:
METU Pride march has been held annually since 2011. The 2022 Pride march was banned by the university, and the university threatened to summon police if it should proceed. The 9th annual Pride march held 2019 found students and faculty met with pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets used by police. Some were dragged on the ground and others sustained head injuries. 18 students and an academic were arrested and released late in the night on the same day. Following a letter from the Ankara Security Office, arrested students had their KYK scholarships and credits terminated. The arrested were prosecuted, and they were acquitted October 2021, with the university's ban found lacking legal basis.
39°53′29″N 32°47′05″E﻿ / ﻿39.89139°N 32.78472°E﻿ / 39.89139; 32.78472