Hey Cluj

Do you want to jump a level in Romanian?  Well, The Transylvanian International Summer Course of Romanian Language and Civilization might help you in less time than it took me to remember the name.

For the basic price, you have Romanian classes, a trip to the botanical garden, and a couple of evening activities including an international evening.

You can pay extra for weekend trips and cultural evening activities.  This is why it is difficult to review.  There are five elements that can affect the price.

First, do you take the course or not?  (Okay, you also have to find a way to get to Cluj, most participants do not live in the town.)

Do you live in the dorms, or find your own accommodation?  (Occasionally participants live in the town, but maybe you know someone who owns an apartment in town or just outside of it.)  The advantage of staying in the dorms is that you are more likely to take the tram with other students to class, to be together for meals, and so on.  There are also a couple of activities in the dorms, and the weekend trips leave from the dorms.  (Sorry, university hotel).

There are a few evening activities included in the price, a meeting with a mentor, an awards ceremony at the end, the opening ceremony, and a multicultural evening.  There is also a class held in the botanical gardens.

The majority of the evening activities cost extra (but can be booked ahead of time as the cultural activities).  These include creating traditional masks, painted eggs, a games night, a city tour, a visit to an ethnographic museum where you can try out traditional costumes, traditional dance, and a cooking lesson.  (There are other activities that we enjoyed, they are just more complicated to explain).

The evening activities/workshops cater to students of all levels.  Therefore, they often end up being in English to be more accessible to beginners.  (although some beginners might not be fluent in English).

Don’t worry if that is price prohibitive.  Those who do not do the evening activities still find great things to do.

There are two weekend excursions.   One on just a Saturday, and one overnight.  A lot of activities are packed into these, sometimes it might feel rushed, but it does give you a taste of what is available.

You will not end up seeing the tourist hotspots like the Turda salt mines or the big castles.  Many of the places might even be empty apart from your group.  You won’t see the biggest botanical gardens in the world, the tallest building, or Dracula’s castle.  Instead, you will find those nice small places you might not have known existed.

The ages of the students ranged from recent university graduates to early retirees.  The people who go seem sociable in general, just ordinary people who work ordinary jobs.    None of the students rented a car, but the buses and trams in Cluj are reliable enough.

So, how much Romanian do you learn?  That depends on how much effort you put in.  Some teachers give extra optional homework, which they mark.  This allows more ambitious students to learn faster.  Also, groups are often given the choice of whether they want a guided tour of a museum in English or Romanian.  If you choose Romanian, you might learn faster.

It was a great experience all around, and I would recommend it from a fun point of view.  We did not get through an entire book, the teaching style was more adapted to what the students said their needs were.  So, be sure to speak up about what your expectations are.

But there were a few mishaps.  The books were supposed to be included, and I didn’t get my own book (I had to buy or borrow).  Another student offered one, and there are great people in the course, most students got books, but it just seemed strange when there were so many manuals available in the university bookshop that I and two other students didn’t get one.

We also were moved up to the hotter rooms upstairs when enrollment for next year was going on in our original classrooms.  UBB has had a record year for enrollment.  Congrats UBB.

The other downside is that sometimes course times were changed, and students were notified by Whatsapp.  If you don’t use Whatsapp, you will be at a disadvantage.

That said, it was fun, and I would do it again.