Why Study Software Engineering at MSKU?

What is Software Engineering?

Software refers to computer programs consisting of algorithms or procedures that work on data and their documentation. Software Engineering, first emerged in the 1960s as a new engineering discipline, is the systematic application of engineering approaches to the development of software products. Accordingly, Software Engineering encompasses concepts, principles, theories, techniques, and tools that can be used to develop high-quality professional software.

What do Software Engineers do?

Software engineers are computer science professionals who use their knowledge of engineering principles and programming languages ​​to create software products, develop computer games, and operate network control systems. Software Engineers are generally divided into two categories according to their focus: Application software developers and system software developers.

Application software developers are people who develop small, medium and even large-scale applications with direct interaction with the end-user. These applications can be desktop, web or mobile applications that run on iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and even other operating systems.

System software developers, however, are mostly associated with the back-end engineering. These engineers build the small or large scale operating systems and network environments required by the applications that users interact with.

Why Study Software Engineering?

A study conducted by Evans Data Corporation showed that there were 26.4 million software developers worldwide in 2019 and this figure is expected to reach 28.7 million in 2024. In the same research, it was stated that the United States of America is in the leading position in the world with 4.2 million software developers. Another study published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) shows that there will be a need for 316 thousand software developers by 2029 in the country. This number also shows that the country will have the largest employment gap in software development services in 2029, when considering only above-average salary occupations in the United States (click for the report).

Just like in the United States, software development services are gaining importance every year in the European countries. The report presented by the Center for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasizes that the gap between the number of software developers trained worldwide and the current employment in software development is increasing. A report prepared by Luxinnovation, the National Innovation Agency of the Luxembourg Government, highlights a number of concerns stemming from the insufficient number of software developers in some European metropolises such as Amsterdam, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Munich, Milan. The report also emphasizes that most startups established in Europe consist of software developers from countries such as Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey, and India (click for the report).

The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) of the Presidency of Republic of Turkey was established in Turkey by Presidential Decree No. 1 published in the Official Gazette No. 30474, dated July 10, 2018. DTO performs many services simultaneously. It is known that e-Government Gateway is the most important project brought to our country by the office, which aims at the digital transformation of independent processes of different institutions and organizations. In addition, the researches on different areas such as cyber security, big data and artificial intelligence are also conducted by the office. In this context, the "1 Million Employment Project" was initiated by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance. The project aims to train 1 million software developers in the field of information and technology in Turkey. As of January 2021, there are approximately 787 thousand applications and 595 thousand people who received training.

All these findings and reports emphasize the need for software engineering both in our country and in the world.

Why MSKU?

According to the 2020 Turkey University Satisfaction Survey conducted by the University Research Laboratory/University Assessments & Research Laboratory, MSKÜ is 22nd among 192 universities and 10th among state universities in "general satisfaction" ranking. The same research reported that MSKU is among the “A+”-group universities that are the most successful in the "University Campus and Life Satisfaction" ranking.

According to the data of the CALIBRE Career and Talent Management Association, MSKU is among the top 30 universities where graduates can find employment easily.

According to the research carried out by the University Research Laboratory on how well the universities which serve distance education during the Covid-19 Pandemic managed this process, MSKU is ranked 9th among the Universities that best managed the process with its high performance during the distance education.

What does Software Engineering Offer?
 

 

26 technical electives are offered in research areas such as Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Network and Security, and Data Science. In addition, new courses, including different research areas, will be added to the technical elective course pool in line with the demands and technological requirements of our students.

Among the technical elective courses offered, our students are expected to take at least 48 ECTS credits (8 courses) that meet the graduation requirement. In addition, it is clear that they can meet some of the “free elective” course credits determined in the curriculum with technical elective courses.

Cihat Çetinkaya, Ph.D. (personal web page)


Emine Elif Tülay, Ph.D. (personal web page)
She was born in Mersin, 1984. After finishing primary and Middle School in different cities, she graduated from Yeşilköy Anatolian high school. After that, she earned her bachelor's degree (2007) and a master degree (2009) in computer engineering at Istanbul Kültür University.  During her master studies, she started to work in Brain Dynamics, cognition and complex system research center at Istanbul Kültür University as a research assistant. During the ten years there, she became one of the authors of several international articles investigating the brain's mechanism with the analysis of biological signals (EEG signals) in different neuropsychiatric diseases and studied as a scholarship student in a TUBITAK project. Moreover, she started her Ph.D. studies in this meanwhile and earned her degree in 2019. She continued to work as a research and development specialist at the Technology Transfer Office of Üsküdar University between 2017-2019. After getting the Ph.D. degree, she started to work as an assistant professor in the Computer Engineering Department of the same university. Nowadays, she works as an assistant professor in the Software Engineering Department of Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. Research interests: Biological Signal Processing, Brain-Computer Interface, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Neural Networks

Fatma Önay Koçoğlu, Ph.D. (personal web page)
She graduated from Istanbul University (IU) Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics and Sakarya University Faculty of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering. With her dissertations on Data Mining, she received her master's degree in 2012 and PhD in 2017 from IU Institute of Graduate Studies in Sciences, Department of Informatics. In 2011, she studied as a graduate student at Université de Technologie de Compiègne (France), Computer Engineering Department for 6 months. She is continuing her second doctorate in IU-Cerrahpaşa Institute of Graduate Studies, Industrial Engineering Program. She worked as a Research Assistant at IU Informatics Department between 2010-2021. Her research areas are Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Decision Support Systems, Facility Location and Allocation Problems, Mathematical Modeling and Optimization. She has many scientific studies published in national and international fields. She worked as a researcher in projects supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and the other Higher Education Institutions. She also worked as an instructor in the scientific training programs organized by Higher Education Institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations. She speaks English fluently and basic French.

Övgü Öztürk, Ph.D. (personal web page)
She graduated from Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Eng. at Middle East Technical University with a double major from Dept. Of Computer Eng. She studied VLSI chip design and electronics for vision systems during her master degree at the University of Tokyo. Later, Dr. Öztürk moved her focus on Computer Vision and Multimedia Systems for her PhD studies. She has worked on Multi-camera systems and Human Behaviour Understanding for Video Surveillance Applications. She also carried out research on Interactive Multimedia Systems, including Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Interactive Environments during her PhD at the University of Tokyo. Currently, she is working in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Game Design, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applied to Health, Education, Tourism, Retail and ICT sectors. She has led more than 10 projects from TUBITAK, EU FP7, KOSGEB, Development Agencies.

Selim Yılmaz, Ph.D. (personal web page)
He received his B.Sc. in Electronics and Computer Education from Selçuk University in 2010, M.Sc. in Computer Engineering from Süleyman Demirel University in 2014, and Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Hacettepe University in 2020. During his graduate study, he studied the development of nature-inspired algorithms. He worked as a research assistant at the Computer Engineering Department in Hacettepe University (English) between 2014 and 2020. He worked as a research assistant at the Computer Engineering Department in Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University (English) in 2020. He has been working as an assistant professor at the Software Engineering Department (English) in Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University since the beginning of 2021. He is a member of the Artificial Intelligence Master Program at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. He is currently affiliated with the Wireless Networks and Intelligent Secure Systems Laboratory (WISE Lab.). His main research areas are nature-inspired evolutionary and heuristic algorithms and their application to real-world problems, intrusion detection and routing problems in wired and wireless networks, and the development of artificial intelligence-based security systems for such networks. He has written several scientific papers in the journals that are indexed internationally. Data mining, machine learning, evolutionary computing techniques, wireless networks and the Internet of Things are some of his areas of interest.

Our academicians are committed to working in cooperation with the undergraduate students of our department for both encouraging them to conduct scientific research and providing them an experience on how academic work can be carried out. Thus, not only in the educational process; but also during the research process, our academicians will share their experiences with undergraduate students. In this regard, our academicians will constantly encourage them.