YER2021, An online symposium of the Undergraduate Student Design Projects in Earth Sciences that was honored by the participation of Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and Azerbaijan Technical University (AZTU) rectors has been enriched with interesting presentations by guest speakers from the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works (DSİ), ETİ Bakır Inc., and Azer Gold company.
YER Symposiums are held every year in June in order to share the outcomes of various undergraduate design projects conducted by the students of the ITU Faculty of Mines under the supervision of their thesis advisors with the scientific community.
This year, the symposium gained an international character with the participation of students from Azerbaijan Technical University (AZTU). The posters of 36 students selected by our faculty's department heads and relevant commissions, and the presentations prepared by 6 students met with the earth sciences community at the online symposium. The symposium was also held as an academic feast with guests and representatives from Azerbaijan and the industry. Within the framework of YER2021, extended abstracts that were produced from the graduation theses of the AZTU and ITU Faculty of Mines Departments were collected in a symposium book (see the link for more details: https://web.itu.edu.tr/~madendek/YER2021BildirilerKitabi.pdf).
In addition to quite comprehensive field and laboratory studies, the theses containing original design and analysis methods and the large number of proceedings reflecting the essence of presented works are also important in terms of showing intensive efforts behind these student projects. The Department of Mining Engineering, Mineral Processing Engineering, and Geophysics Engineering contributed to the symposium with 47, 24, and 19 proceedings, respectively. Department of Geological Engineering and Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering presented 7 and 13 works, respectively that were showing good examples of collaborative student works within a teamwork manner.
These design projects, which represent the first scientific/technological research experience of senior students prior to the first step on the profession, require labor-intensive and scientific collaboration where students, research assistants and thesis advisors come together within the scope of these studies. For this reason, activities reflecting the essence of graduation studies are highly valued by our faculty and maximum effort is put to make these studies more comprehensive in the form of beneficial teamwork.
