Technical University of Cluj-Napoca - UTCN
speciality: Electrical Engineering

I am in year 2 of Electrical Engineering and if I knew this 2 years ago I wouldn’t join. I don’t live in the university’s student rooms, neither eat at their canteen so I won’t cover that part.

What I dislike:

– The comunication is bad. They sometimes communicate important stuff on Whatsapp, Teams, Their site or through one member of the class, but it’s easy to miss some information like exams moving from one day to another. If you don’t check the site and ask everyone you know you might miss an exam because of this, like I did.
– The discount of the public transport subscription was a lie. At least for me. It was hard for me to figure out how to apply gor the discount, but most of the times I tried to complete their form I had problems with their site. And the few times I did fill and send their form I didn’t actually got my money.
– The worst experience with this college is the schedule. Is chaotic. Sometimes you have labs starting from 8:00, sometimes you have labs that end at 20:00, sometimes both. There are breaks of 2 or 4 hours between some bals or courses to make sure you waste your time or try to find a place to study in those breaks.
– In the faculty courtyard you can’t rest without the smell of smoke. There are people smoking and vaping everywhere th yard. The only safe place if you have breathing problems is inside the buildings. They don’t have a special place for smokers because probably more than 50% of the students smoke.
– The labs are spread all over the city. A student that goes to courses too and not just labs might waste 3 hours per day only on the bus, even if it lives in the city, somehwere between the labs. I decided to skip courses to save more time. And they wonder why there are so few people going to courses.
– The site is awful. I thought a big university like UTCN would have enough resources to invest in their site, but the interface is confusing. I expected an UI where everything is in one place, but instead you have to search for a different link for the fees, one for the schedule, one for the transport discount, one for the exam schedule and so on.

What I like:

– The only thing I like about this college are the professors. Some of them are really nice people who would help you, even in their free time. Most of the professors put a lot of effort into helping students pass their exams. The students get to evaluate the professors, too (when the site works), but I would like to see an evaluation for the site, schedule and administration, not just the professors.

Conclusion:

If you put value in your sleep schedule and want to stay healthy, then this college is not worth your time. I wish I knew this earlier.

My experience at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (UTCN) was an intense but very valuable one. The professors are well-trained and passionate, and many courses have direct applicability in industry. A great advantage of UTCN is the collaboration with local and international companies, giving students access to internships and real projects. The campus is not very large, but the laboratories are well-equipped. Although Cluj-Napoca is an expensive city for students, there are many part-time job opportunities. Some classrooms could be modernized, but the university is constantly investing in improvements. The student community is active, and the city has a vibrant social life. UTCN is an excellent choice for those who want a solid technical education and a well-defined career after graduation.

The buildings of the University are quite great and up to date in many aspects. The laboratories are well equiped and the lecture rooms are comfortable enough for 2 or 3 hour lectures. In the English specializations, the professors are very well suited for their jobs as most of them have been working recently in the domain that they are teaching. However, there are many cases of professors (especially in the Romanian specializations) that do not do a very well job of teaching their students as they are somehow stuck in the past, using old, irrelevant information and outdated teaching techniques and this is the only reason that I didn’t give a rating of 5 stars.