Eötvös Loránd University - ELTE (reviews)

You can easily spot history, Korean and Japanese BA students. The campus is nice. The beer is overpriced. The parties are all the same, but fun for the first couple of times. The student council is a circus.

I was studying Computer Science at ELTE, while there were many great classes, there was a great deal of Mathematical definitions, that were to be learnt word by word, and less practical usage of them. While this is somewhat necessary to understand it I believe it could’ve been done better.

I liked studying here, the atmosphere was great and the subjects were challenging. I made great friends here, which is nice for networking in the future. I had a chance to study what I like.
Although the professors are a bit old. Not “outdated”, but certainly not the type who are up to date with newest trends.

Everyone thinks ELTE is the “fancy university”, but actually? They are already too far up in their arses that they forgot how to do any actual work. Something of quality. There are fun professors, and good ones, but the overall experience wasn’t that cathartic.

The professors are very old and do not speak english well at least for my course. The course curriculum for computer science also goes through obsolete topics instead of keeping up with the newer ones. For instance, we are taught 2 courses of algorithms but the course is designed in a way that we are not taught algorithm design nor are we assessed on it. We are taught languages like Clean and ADA that nobody has ever heard of but not Python which has a great business value. The course and the professors both badly need an upgrade. The courses taught by PhD students as Asst. Professors are much better than the ones taught by 70 year olds with really bad english. There’s a lot of bureaucracy and because of that we are taught what senior teachers want us to study instead of what should be beneficial. The university does not support Student clubs well and therefore they are independent and there is not much student life left due to this.

The program (MA in IR) is overall good. The professors are great but I recommend hiring international professors as well. Sometimes I feel that I’m overloaded. There are 10 mandatory classes per semester (but I think this was like this only due to the pandemic). Student life isn’t developed well but it depends on you of course 🙂

The program of masters in International Relations in ELTE is good enough for students looking for a good education at an affordable price, compared to other prestigious universities in Europe. It has one of the best professors in Hungary and Europe, people who are very passionate about what they do and who understand and consider both the Western and Eastern points of view- due to Hungary’s location and culture- in the course design and debates. The program has been blended between online and on-campus but the university always did what was necessary for the protection of the students and staff. Despite the Covid current situation, I found myself surrounded by remarkable classmates from every corner of the world, and due to the friendliness and cooperation of my colleagues, we succeeded in having a social life even during the lockdown. We were even able to meet some of our professors in person outside of class.
Considering how recent and west-centred the international relation discipline is in its nature, I think that ELTE is a great place to be. It thrives to have diverse students from different nationalities, especially in developing countries. This gives us the chance as students to critically think about how the world works, to get brilliant insights from different parts of the world, and to keep the class and the debates always interesting.
In addition, Budapest is a vibrant city full of history and controversial politics. So not only it is a really nice place to live, but it can also be an interesting case to study and learn from.

Truth is that ELTE is the best option for people who want to study social sciences in Hungary. There are some big problems with the course structure though: too much emphasis is being put on history while there are only a few classes that have to do with the actual application of social sciences. There is also a problem with teachers being a bit fixated on Karl Marx and generally on the “founding fathers of sociology”. Still, I would recommend it to people who like the social sciences.