Department of International Trade was established within The School of Applied Disciplines founded at Boğaziçi University in 1995. The mission being the advancement of knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of international trade and educating students to be competent, skillful, active, self aware, critical and responsible citizens of the world they will inherit.The Department started with 10 faculty and 40 students in Fall 1996 and now has 197 enrolled undergraduates.


Changes in the World economy and the information technologies brought in the demand for specialized programs with interdisciplinary and flexible curriculum aimed at the development and dissemination of new knowledge and skills. Considering the limitations of the general business administration programs reflected in the growing need for MBA programs, and the scarcity of resources and supply in Turkish higher education, a group of faculty at Boğaziçi University started a curriculum development project for new programs in 1987. The objective was a specialized interdisciplinary program with an international focus. The curriculum based on the disciplines of business administration and economics would cover diverse subjects that would meet the information and skills needs for international trade activities of all sectors.


Based on this interdiciplinary philosophy Department of International Trade awards a bachelor of arts degree and offers instruction in basic business, economics, law, foreign languages, quantitative techniques, specialized areas of international business, international economics, international law, strategic alliances/economic integration, entrepreneurship and related topics through a total of 83 courses. A total of 21 additional specialized departmental elective are offered. Some of the departmental elective courses are given by part time faculty who have a strong academic background and who are leading professionals in their fields. Students take complementary electives as well as the humanities /social sciences and unrestricted electives from the course pool offered by the other schools within the University. The language of instuction is English. Students are required to take six semesters of a second foreign language other than English.The innovative curriculum of the department earned national reputation. In 1997 Prime Ministry Undersecratariat of Foreign Trade organized a meeting and advised all Turkish Universities to start international trade programes using the model developed by Boğaziçi University International Trade Department.


The Department has evolved into an academic unit with a specialized and competitve program.Today, with 30 fulltime faculty from Boğaziçi University and part time faculty from the business world, the Department of International Trade has an average enrollment of 197students. Admitted students rank in the top 1 % in the central university entrance examination - the only alternative for admission to University in Turkey taken by around 1.5 million high school graduates every year. The department offers a rigorous international business program specialized in inernational trade. It has been one of the most preferred programs and was positioned as one of the first 3rd to 6th departments that admits students with the highest ÖSY scores among 380 similar programs in the Turkish higher education system.


Given its philosophy of a flexible and dynamic curriculum responsive to environmental changes, the Department strengthened its academic mission by a curriculum revision in 1998. Adopting an uncompromising policy in the pursuit of its academic mission, the department overcame resource constraints by establishing financial equilibrium through the graduate certificate programmes offered in the fields of retail management,finance and marketing and business administration. Twentyfive percent of first term graduates of June 2000 are enrolled in reputable graduate programs at universities in Turkey, The United States and Europe. The remaining seventyfive percent took management track positions in leading national and international firms in manufacturing, services and the finance sectors.