The mission of the METU is to reach, produce, apply and promote knowledge, and to educate individuals with that knowledge for the social, cultural, economic, scientific and technological development of our society and humanity. This is to be done by bringing teaching, research and social services up to the universal standards.

The Department of Civil Engineering in the Ankara Campus was established over 50 years ago. With over 50 full time faculty members and 70 research assistants, it constitutes one of the largest Civil Engineering departments in the world. The undergraduate program in the main Campus was evaluated by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc.) for the first time in 1996 and judged to be substantially equivalent to similarly named accredited programs in U.S.A. The Civil Engineering program has also been evaluated by ABET in 2004 according to ABET 2000 criteria and judged to be substantially equivalent to similarly named accredited programs in U.S.A. through 2010. The newly established campus (Northern Cyprus Campus; NCC) of METU in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus follows this commitment to excellence in education and scholarly research, and requires the same academic criteria for appointment and promotion. METU Northern Cyprus Campus has become operational in September 2005 and currently we have over 100 undergraduate students majoring in Civil Engineering.

The faculty members in the Civil Engineering Program are either appointed as full time faculty members for the NCC or are brought from the main Campus depending on the needs of the Program. This allows us to establish a rather dynamic education environment. Furthermore, it assures that the education qualities in both campuses are kept at the same level. Our faculty member/student ratio (which is about 11 for the NCC) is lower than the main campus ratio. This provides a tremendous advantage for higher level courses in which projects constitute a major part of the course work load.

Current state of the construction industry indicates that engineers must be able to work with and within other cultures. Regional, national, and international issues are important in how major projects are designed, built, and operated, and in assessing how environmental effects transcend political boundaries. One of our main objectives is to prepare our students to the ever-changing scenery of the construction industry by increasing the number of projects in the undergraduate education and improving the presentation and communication skills.

Our objective is to train engineers who can communicate clearly, think both rationally and creatively, face challenging situations in engineering management, exercise social judgments and take decisions and responsibility with confidence.