Applied evaluation of social policies for international students studying in Turkey: Kocaeli University case

An increasing number of international students are coming to Turkey every year to get a qualitative education. On the other hand, this education process naturally comes with some adaptation problems. These problems are important because they affect the academic achievement of the students. There are also a few academic studies which prioritize or/ and include these problems. This study is written for contributing to the aforementioned issues, and aim to analyze the social, cultural, academic and financial adaptation problems of the international students. In this study, it is examined that social communication problems, financial difficulties ,and cultural adaptation are some difficulties of the international students, they face in their education and their daily lives. In the light of the findings obtained through a literature survey and a comprehensive questionnaire, it was analyzed the adaptation problems of the students according to gender, age, marital status and residence time in Turkey. As a result of the analyzes, it is observed that language, economy, and cultural adaptation are the main adaptation problems of international students. Studies related to the adaptation problems of the international students on such an issue which has important relations with politics, economy, sociology, and culture have importance in terms of both internationalization of Turkish education system and also not to waste the labor and financial resources which is related to the subject. Besides, this thesis aims to contribute to official organizations and non-governmental organizations which operate activities related to the international students. With this study, it can partially be contributed to Turkey's and its neighboring region's human-centered projects or programs.