The serial scholars

When Burak and Burcin Kaplanoglu were little boys, their favourite toy was Lego. The identical twins, born nine minutes apart, used to play for hours in their bedroom, constructing imaginary cities together.

Now aged 27, Burcin is project engineer on the construction of a $200m office block in Chicago. And Burak is travelling around Europe on a mission to change company culture. Both work for Bovis Lend Lease.

What has brought the twins from their comfortable Istanbul home to construction careers on different sides of the globe? They love to study! With a bachelors and masters degree under his belt, Burcin is now pursuing a PhD and Burak starts his second masters next year.

Children of upper middle class parents, the Kaplanoglus had a private education. The Turkish system is similar to the UK one, with primary and secondary school. They did everything together, studying the same subjects in the same classrooms with the same friends. "I had not realised how lucky I was," says Burak. "I always had a friend who knew me inside out and who I could trust. Later I realised I was very privileged."

Studying stateside
At 17 Burak left Burcin. He won a scholarship to study for a year in the US through an organisation called the American Civil Service which aims to spread North American culture around the world. "It was really difficult to get used to life without my brother," says Burcin. But on reflection he adds that it was a positive thing. "We were together all the time, we were sharing a life. It is good that we actually found our own way."

So Burak went to live the American dream, as he puts it. He started wearing baggy jeans and baseball caps, graduated from high school and filled out on a diet of pizza and hamburgers. After his year away, he returned to Turkey for two years as the scholarship rules dictated. "I am always the sort of person who follows the rules," he says. But he was desperate to get away. "Once you open yourself to the word, you realise there are millions of ways of doing things."

Instead of returning to the US, he looked to the UK, a country he had visited regularly with his parents. He went to study architecture, a childhood dream, in Nottingham. Burcin remembers Burak age 12, staying inside for days drawing complex city plans for an exhibition while his twin played in the sunshine.

But during Burak's year out in an architectural practice he realised two things: he wanted to live in England and he didn't want to be an architect. "I realised there were a lot of frustrations. Architects don't have much influence. It was the client, the contractors, the planners who pretty much decided the scheme. It was very disappointing."

If you have the potential, americans don’t hold you back

Burak Kaplanoglu

Change of plans
He didn't go on to become RIBA-qualified, instead electing to do a masters in construction economics and management at UCL. A few months after the course began, Burak started plotting how he could get a job in the UK. "Getting a job for a non-EU person in the UK is like Catch 22. You can only get a job if you have a work permit and you can only have a work permit if you have a job." He chose e-business as his thesis as it was the buzz of the day, landing a job with Bovis Lend Lease.

Burak came top of his class, but claims that he still managed to have fun: "It was the second biggest year of my life," he says (the biggest being high school in the USA). "It was my first year living in London. I was loving every bit of it."

Meanwhile Burcin was enjoying life in Turkey. He had finished in the top 20,000 out of two million in his end of high school exams, a prerequisite for attending university in Turkey. He went to Istanbul University and chose engineering because it was a profession with kudos: "In Turkey 15 years ago it was one of the really good occupations. Now it's changing more and more to management or social sciences." Burcin talks about the respect he received when carrying out assessments of buildings for the college after the earthquake of 1999.

Global outlook
Whilst studying his masters in civil engineering, Burcin found work as a research assistant in a private university, Istanbul Kultur University. He had money, a doting family, lots of friends. So why did he decide to look abroad for a place to do his PhD?

"I figured out that if I did a PhD in Turkey I would be a person with a PhD from Turkey. And if I did it in the US I can work anywhere in the world. I want to be a person who can work in the whole of the world."

Many people would have been happy to do a PhD and work as a research assistant. Not Burcin. He won a scholarship at Chicago's ITT university. He also became president of his the student chapter of the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) and took a part-time job. So enthusiastically did he carry out his role – organising field trips, setting up a website – that he won the CMAA chapter of the year award. The job, which he heard of through Burak, was with Bovis Lend Lease, researching the businesses of competitors and clients.

In the US, a PhD usually takes five years, starting with a series of classes. Burcin finished all these – and did well - in his first year. Now he is working full time as a project engineer, responsible for document management on a $200m office building known as 71 South Wacker.

I want to be a person who can work in the whole of the world

Burcin Kaplanoglu

Burcin is proud of a system he has developed with his boss to distribute bid documents on CD. This has saved $60,000 in six months by transferring printing costs to the subcontractors. Burcin also set up a website for the project, complete with webcam, something he says is unusual for construction jobs in the US.

Back in the UK, meanwhile, brother Burak now works for health and safety director Peter Jacobs, trying to effect a culture change across Bovis Lend Lease's European business. Called 'Incident and Injury Free', the idea is to convince all Bovis employees and then all subcontractors that people's safety – and not cash – is the number one priority. (See Construction Manager, May 2003).

Burcin, who has just spent his two week annual holiday entitlement working on his PhD, envies his brother. Not only does Burak travel with his job, but his UK-size holiday allowance means he can visit family and friends overseas. But next year Burcin won't have the time. He is embarking on his second masters, in real estate economics and finance at LSE.

Adopted lands
So are the twins happy with the countries in which they find themselves?

The US mentality is very different from the Turkish one, according to Burcin. Survival and improvisation are part of the culture in Istanbul, he says, but not in the US: "As long as you obey the rules and are a loyal part of the system, you don't have to think too much. Some of us foreigners wonder how Americans cannot think out of the box, but then you don't have to in order to survive."

In Turkey they are passionate and enthusiastic but not good at writing things down or completing things. In the US people are very professional, he says, but dispensable. So Burak likes the UK because it falls between these two extremes. But he does have a little dig at the UK mentality: "Americans don't hold you back. They encourage you if you have the potential. They don't have the constant moaning jealous attitude that they have in this country."