An Assessment on Awareness Level of Graduating Students Regarding the Significance of Sustainability

The built environment is one of the most important sectors, which influences the progress towards sustainability. Lately, important improvements in understanding sustainability have been made. However, there is a crucial problem in making this information accessible to key people and also in motivating the different actors to collaborate. Meanwhile, even though it is not very easy to teach an awareness on sustainability and collaboration, this study enhances a belief that higher education institutions do and can play a significant role. Based on these ideas, this quantitative research, investigates the awareness level of the graduating students of the five professions, which are involved in the design of the built environment (Architecture, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Interior Architecture, and Mechanical Engineering) and are offered as undergraduate educational programs at the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU). A comprehensive survey was designed and distributed to the graduating students of these five departments at EMU. The findings show that most of the students have passion for sustainability regardless of their department. However, from the level of awareness towards sustainability, the results indicate that there is still a lot improvement chances. Keywords: Sustainability, Built Environment, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Higher Education.