Welcome Again, Mehmet Ali Hoca!
With the closure of private "dershane"s in 2015, a program called UP(University Preparation) was launched at Robert College to ensure that students would not experience a gap in their YKS preparation. For Mehmet Ali Hoca, this program didn't only mark a new professional journey, but also the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship with the Robert College community. "My own journey as a member of the Robert College family began thanks to this program," he recalls. In the early years of UP, he served as a mathematics and geometry teacher, working closely with students during one of the most demanding phases of their academic lives, while studying for YKS, the most important exam for Türkiyeci students.
After two years in the classroom, Mehmet Ali Hoca took on a new responsibility: coordinating the UP program. This was a role he continued until 2023. While similar programs in other schools were typically short-lived, UP endured at Robert College for eight full years. As he puts it, "The fact that UP continued for eight years at Robert College was no coincidence," he says, "It was a results-oriented, student-centred, successful, and sustainable program."
Over time, however, the academic landscape began to shift in the school. The once "Türkiyeci" majority of the school was now dominated by "Yurtdışıcı" students who aspired to education abroad. With fewer students preparing for the YKS for Turkish universities and a growing interest in universities abroad, the program gradually fulfilled its mission and came to a natural close after 8 years. During this transition, Mehmet Ali Hoca left the school, but as he remarks, "the school never left me."
In the years that followed the closure of UP, Mehmet Ali Hoca worked as the director of Caddem Etiler, a dershane located near the school (a 15-20 minute walk away). Caddem is –and was– filled with Robert College students, whom Mehmet Ali Hoca personally assisted on their YKS journey outside of the school until the previous month. By the time he came back to Robert College, there were approximately 50 Robert College students with whom he worked and assisted them to achieve success. "In other words, my bond with Robert never truly broke," he says about this situation.
After eight years in an environment, that environment shifts from being an experience to a family, which happened to Mehmet Ali Hoca in the case of Robert College. "Being known by everyone and having my return welcomed so warmly made me feel not like someone new, but like someone coming back home," he says. Returning to such a place carries its own emotional weight, as if you come to your old family house after a long time. Being recognised by familiar faces and welcomed with warm smiles made his return to his "home" feel deeply personal.
Today, his role at Robert College centers on guiding students through the YKS university preparation journey, walking alongside them rather than simply instructing from the front of the classroom. "If you are able to return to a place years later, it means you must have done something right there," he says.
Some places remain chapters you close. Others remain part of who you are. As Mehmet Ali Hoca so happily says, "You leave some schools behind, but some schools never leave you." For him, Robert College is unmistakably one of those places.
So, again: Welcome back, Mehmet Ali Hoca, Robert College has missed you!
