Hello, I’m Özge Mutlu Durak. I am studying Interior Architecture at Istanbul Bilgi University. From the first moment we enter the university, even during the selection process, when the school ends, we start to think about how our professional life will go, and we create some scenarios in our minds. In fact, the most logical and practical way to relax ourselves and get used to the professional life a little bit is to do internships in offices. Thanks to the awareness of most universities and their desire to provide students with experience, internships are carried out within the curriculum, and this makes it easier for students to find internships.

It is very important for the place where you do your internship to provide you with the necessary conditions for this process to be healthy, and MUUM is very meticulous in this regard. The fact that the interns have a good experience, that they leave here in a well-developed manner and that they are aware that there are subjects to be learned from the interns allow both parties to pass this process in a beneficial way. Before the internship program starts, the projects to be assigned to you are thought through and your tasks are determined, which is a very important point in my opinion to ensure maximum efficiency. You get the chance to be involved in all the processes of a project and it is highly supported that you have a say in important issues. Having the opportunity to attend meetings in and out of the office, having the chance to have a one-on-one discussion with the employees, accepting that you are an individual who can make certain decisions rather than just a student, and being treated accordingly are situations that affect your perspective on the profession and your future very positively.

As architecture students, throughout our education life, we were shown how every little touch we made affects people’s lives, we were taught that we should definitely not forget this in your designs, and since MUUM started its designs with the motto of “Architecture for Human-Oriented Environments”, we saw how this value taught to us is applied on the basis of projects. Being in an office that adopts the view that architecture is for people and cannot be separated from humanity has actually been a very satisfying experience both professionally and morally. During my 2 months of internship, I had the opportunity to meet different parts of our field in projects of different scales and I believe that this inclusive experience is really valuable. The fact that we interacted well with everyone we were in the same environment and contributed something to each other, not only thanks to the projects, made this process much more unique. I would like to thank MUUM for allowing me to go through this beautiful process.