Maltepe University

The Bachelor of Ship and Yacht Design is a four-year undergraduate program delivered entirely in Turkish at Turkey’s leading maritime universities and faculties of naval architecture, designed to train creative and technically outstanding ship and yacht designers who can conceive, draw, calculate, and bring to life commercial vessels, mega-yachts, passenger ferries, fishing boats, military craft, and innovative marine concepts in a country that ranks among the world’s top three superyacht-building nations and possesses one of the largest shipbuilding and repair clusters on the planet.Throughout the program students acquire a unique combination of artistic design talent, advanced engineering knowledge, and hands-on production experience that makes them immediately employable in the global maritime industry. They master hull form design and fairing using NAPA, Maxsurf, Rhino, and Orca3D, hydrostatics and stability calculations according to IMO and Turkish Lloyd regulations, resistance and propulsion optimization with CFD tools (Star-CCM+, OpenFOAM, Fine/Marine), structural analysis of steel, aluminum, and composite hulls using ANSYS and DNV-GL Nauticus, interior and exterior yacht styling, 3D modeling and photorealistic rendering with KeyShot and Lumion, sail and rigging design, marine composites and sandwich construction, ship production methods (block construction, modular building), yacht equipment and system integration (electrical, HVAC, plumbing), marine ergonomics and safety, green ship and zero-emission propulsion technologies (hybrid, LNG, hydrogen, sail-assisted), and project management for custom yacht builds. Students work daily in professional design studios with large-format plotters, composite workshops, and model basins, build and test dozens of scale models, complete long-term internships at Turkey’s world-famous superyacht yards (Bilgin, Turquoise, Mengi Yay, Vicem, Numarine, Alia, Sunrise, Tansu, RMK Marine, Sarp, Delta Marine), commercial shipyards (Tersan, Cemre, Hat-San, İstanbul Tersanesi, Sefine), design offices (Unique Yacht Design, Hot Lab Istanbul, BMT Turkey, Hydrotec), and classification societies (Türk Loydu, Bureau Veritas, RINA), and graduate with a complete professional portfolio that includes at least one fully calculated and rendered 30–100-meter yacht or commercial vessel design that regularly wins international student awards such as RINA-Young Designer and Boat International Design Awards.Graduates of the Bachelor of Ship and Yacht Design enjoy virtually 100% employment rates and belong to the most globally most in-demand design talent pool in the maritime sector. They are instantly recruited as yacht designers, naval architects, project coordinators, 3D modelers, interior designers, and technical office engineers by Turkey’s superyacht builders that dominate the global top-100-meter rankings, commercial and military shipyards, international design studios with offices in Istanbul (Hot Lab, Bannenberg & Rowell, Espen Øino, Winch Design partners), classification societies, and equipment suppliers (Besenzoni, Opacmare, Rolls-Royce Marine Turkey). Many graduates become the lead designers of iconic yachts launched worldwide, while others specialize in sustainable marine design or autonomous vessel projects and move to Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, or Monaco within a few years. The profession commands exceptional social prestige because these young designers create the floating symbols of luxury and engineering excellence that carry the “Made in Türkiye” label to every sea on earth. Starting salaries are among the highest of all four-year programs in Turkey and rise dramatically with each delivered project, international boat-show exposure, and designer signature value, enabling most graduates to reach solid upper-middle-class income before age thirty and elite status for those whose designs regularly appear on the covers of Yachts International, Boat International, and Superyacht Times. In summary, the Bachelor of Ship and Yacht Design offers a rare blend of art, engineering, luxury, and global recognition that transforms passionate maritime enthusiasts into the visionary designers who literally shape the future of the seas.