Our Faculty

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1959, offering bachelor's degrees in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Western Languages and Literatures. Today the largest faculty of Boğaziçi University, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, comprises the departments of Chemistry, History, Linguistics, Mathematics, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Translation and Interpreting Studies, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Sociology, Turkish Language, and Western Languages and Literatures, as well as units coordinating courses in Turkish language and Humanities.

Other than the Department of Sociology, all departments offer programs at the bachelor, master and doctoral levels. Additionally, the Faculty has a number of affiliated research centers which work in collaboration with the relevant departments. Certificate programs in copywriting, American studies, and film studies are also offered by departments within the Faculty.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences follows an educational approach grounded in a belief in the integration of the university’s various academic units. The Faculty offers a wide array of courses to students enrolled in its programs as well as to students from other faculties. The mass courses offered by the Faculty are coordinated by various departments and coordination units. The compulsory Turkish courses taken by all students at the university are organized by the Turkish Courses Coordination Unit, while Humanities electives are offered by the Humanities Coordination Unit. The departments of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Physics and Chemistry coordinate the science electives for students of social and physical sciences. The mass courses offered by our Faculty can constitute up to 30 percent of the total minimum credit load required for graduation from the Faculty of Engineering and more than 50 percent of the total minimum credit load for certain departments within the Faculty of Education.

Departments within our Faculty admit the highest-scoring students in all branches of the university entrance examination. In the second semester of the 2021-2022 academic year, 3231 undergraduate students enrolled in our faculty. This number is 3398 for the first semester of 2022-2023.

Each semester, approximately 8,000 faculty students and 14,000 students from other faculties register for departmental and mass courses within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The academic staff of the Faculty consists of 56 professors, 38 associate professors, 48 assistant professors, 20 lecturers, 90 research assistants, 35 international and 1 Turkish citizen faculty members (contract-based) and 70 part-time instructors.

In addition to offering the abovementioned range of courses, academic personnel in the Faculty also carry out research at the highest levels of excellence. As a result of research activities supported by various national and international funds, last year, our faculty members published 15 books, 66 book chapters, 240 scientific articles and 233 proceedings.