European University of Lefke (EUL) Faculty of Communication Services Chairperson of the Department of Visual Communication Design Asst. Prof. Dr. Elif Atamaz participated in INMECS21 1st International Conference on Media and Cultural Studies with the theme of ‘Communication, Art and Culture in the Digital World’ and presented her study titled ‘The Distance Education Experience of Visual Communication Design Students During the Pandemic Process: The Example of European University of Lefke.

Asst. Prof. Dr.Atamaz made a presentation in the session on ‘Distance Education’ of the conference, which was held online via the video conference platform,attended by academicians and researchers from 10 countries with a total of 83 papers, and shared the process of the European University of Lefke’s transition to online education since March 2019-20 Academic Year Spring Semester due to the Covid 19 Pandemic and the experiences of the students of the Visual Communication Design department of the Faculty of Communication Sciences in this process. Atamaz stated that ‘Although the return of face to face education programs which are usual especially for applied departments, to online has created difficulties in harmony and adaptation, it has been seen that pandemic has created new opportunities in the field of education in time’ and she said the following about her work : ‘As the Faculty of Communication Sciences, at the end of the term we proceed to online education, we held a digital meeting again to get our students’ ideas, opinions and experiences.  In this meeting, the students of the four departments of our faculty, namely Visual Communication Design, Public Relations and Advertising, Radio TV Cinema and New Media and Communications, talked about what they experienced during the online education process, what they felt at the point they reached.’  Atamaz also stated that as a faculty member of the Visual Communication Design department, she had students made a survey for their applied courses and converted the opinions obtained at the meeting into statistics.

Finally, she added that there is no limit to education in this new distance education system process, where both instructors and students were caught suddenly, and that they have successfully passed the distance education process with the opportunities offered by technology.