Should you apply for an Erasmus exchange at The National University of Arts Bucharest?

Should you apply for an Erasmus exchange at The National University of Arts Bucharest? 

I am not an Erasmus student at The National University of Arts in Bucharest, but I am a normal student and I am in my last year of Master at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department.

Even so, I wanna inform future Erasmus students who are thinking of coming at my home university about how is like to be a student at UNARTE and what is to expect if somebody decides to chose the school for an Erasmus experience. 

Since I have been studying only painting from the beginning of my studies I can talk more from the point of view of the Painting Department because I’ve experienced directly how is mostly everything like. Plus, I’ve been twice an Erasmus student myself and I learned from my experiences what are the needs, questions, desires of an exchange student. So, let’s begin!

The Erasmus office and the coordinators

My favorite part. The university has an Erasmus Office located in the Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design on Calea Griviței street.

The Erasmus coordinators working with both incoming and outgoing students are very nice and helpful when it comes to everything that is needed from papers to courses and personal problems.

I really appreciate their work because I’ve experienced in my two exchange mobilities bad situations with not so well trained Erasmus coordinators from where I came to the conclusion that ours are very interested in developing good relationships with the all students and also giving fair help to everybody in various circumstances. 

So, at Unarte the future incoming Erasmus students will find a large open support in the coordinators. 

The accommodation

The university has a student dormitory situated nearby all of the faculties that it includes. As far as I know, since last year, in the dormitory were created special rooms only for the Erasmus students. The problem is that the conditions are not so good and pleasant.

There are rooms for 2 persons and 4 persons. Usually in the rooms for 4 persons are leaving 3 persons because there is not enough space for 4 people in a room. Each 4 person room has a tiny tiny bathroom like a 1 square meter bathroom with a toilet, a sink and a shower. 

There is no common big kitchen, but instead every room has its own fridge. On the ground floor ( there are 4 floors by the way ) there is a laundry room where students can wash and dry the clothes free of any charge. 

I have lived in the dormitory since my second year of university and for me it has been a bitter sweet experience. Sweet because I have stayed with some of my closest friends and we have had very good memories from living with each other and bitter because we have had always problems with the disgusting cockroaches and couldn’t get rid of them with any toxic solution. 

If you are more of an open person I think you can accommodate in living with other 3 or 4 persons, but otherwise it can be difficult to share a small space and intimacy with others. 

The good things about the uni’s dormitory are the prices of rent, for example I pay monthly 230 lei meaning almost 50 euros which is very cheap, the building is 5 to 10 minutes away from the faculties and maybe you can find some good friends around. In the price of 230 lei are included all of the utilities such as Internet, electricity, runing water. 

There are supermarkets around, places to eat during the day and a non-stop grocery store very famous around the students called "Moxa". 

The bad things are the evil cockroaches, the unexpected loud noise in the middle of the night when all you want to do is sleep, the small space you get in a room of 4 persons where maybe you cannot have intimacy but you can have friendships. 

If this sounds not so good for you, the other option is not find a place to rent. Some friends of mine who are living in a shared flat are usually paying per month more than 100-150 euros per each individual, which is also not extremely expensive, but if I were you, I will stay in the dormitory and spend all of the saved money on travels around Romania because there are so many cool and beautiful places to see and experience in this country. 

Are people speaking English?

The Erasmus coordinators are speaking in English for sure and also most of the students. The problem appears when it comes to the teacher because some of them are not good in talking in English or not speaking at all in a foreign language. I don’t know how are all of the teachers, but I’ve seen 3 different situations with some teachers from the painting department. 

During my bachelor studies, in our painting studio came an Erasmus student from Italy and our teacher struggled a bit in trying to speak in English with the student. Fortunately, one colleague was talking in Italian and she helped the teacher and the student with translations from Italian to Romanian and the other way around. 

Last year, in our master painting studio teached this time by a different professor arrived an exchange student from the Czech Republic. The teacher couldn’t speak anything with the student because he didn’t knew English at all and due to that they didn’t had a good collaboration.

I saw how the student was kind of disappointed by this aspect. Luckly, the studio also has an younger assistant who was finally speaking in English with the student and who was trying to help him as much as he could. 

Going through other studios I have seen how another painting teacher was trying to speak in English with a Spanish student being a bit helped by other students. An incoming Erasmus student from Bulgaria told me that she got along very well with her painting studio teacher who was speaking in English very well.

As you can see, the situations may vary. From what I’ve heard and seen, usually the younger teacher are probably speaking in English as well as the assistants.

One of the art history teachers is helding special courses and tours dedicated to the Erasmus students which is a very good thing that I wished I had when I was an  exchange student in Poland and Germany. 

How are the painting studios?

The Faculty of Fine Arts located on Constantin Budișteanu street has two floors full of painting studios for students working for their bachelor or master degree. Every teacher has its own studio. Some of the professors have two studios, one is for bachelor students and the other for master students.

So, yeah, students are divided in bachelor and master and they are not having studios and courses together as I experienced in Saarbrucken and Szczecin. 

For example, if an Erasmus student is in the second year of the bachelor degree he will be distributed to a teacher that has a group in the same year that he is. The master students are put together, so you can find people from the first year of master with the second year of it. 

In the beginning of the semester students have the option to move from one teacher to another, that’s why some studios are more crowded and others are just with a few students. 

The studios are created for traditional painting. What I want to say by this is that there are no special modern technological equipments in the studios, only painting related furniture such as easels, high wooden chairs, drawing boards. Of course, students can bring what they want and need to work with, but these are the things that the university offers. 

What you can learn in the painting studios?

During the bachelor years normally teachers are working with the students on developing drawing, composition and color skills. Especially in the first year, students are drawing after a life model, doing lots of studies from the human body while also focusing on understanding the color and all of its particularities.

In the last year of bachelor the concept of composition and individual work comes much more in and the students are focused on developing their own artworks, concepts and ideas. 

Apart from the time when students have to be in the studio to work from the model, meet with the teacher for consultations or have the actual classes found in the schedule, they can come and work in the studio anytime from 8.00 AM to 22.00 PM and on weekends too, which I think is pretty cool. 

The master degree is all about creating paintings based on each student interest. Now the students are truly free to paint whatever they desire. Even if the majority of the students are creating traditional paintings meaning that they are painting on flat surfaces like canvases, papers, they can also expand the vision and work with different mediums such as installations, depending on what the students want to express. 

No matter in which year of studying you are, at the end of the semester all of the studios are preparing an exhibition. The students are showing the best paintings, drawings, compositions they have been working on during the semester.

This period is usually very stressful, but also rewarding and one of my favorites. There is also an event called "ziua porților deschise" translated as "the day of the opening gates" when visitors are welcomed through the studios and can see all of the exhibitions. 

Plus, the Erasmus coordinatores alongside with the incoming and outgoing students are organizing a special exhibition in the university's gallery in an aim of displaying the student's works, both foreign and also outgoing romanian students - those who had been in an exchange mobility outside the country.  

Is there any art to see in Bucharest?

In the city there are 3 large museums dedicated to various kinds of art expressions and lots of galleries which I don't even know all. The major museums are:

• The National Museum of Art - contains two parts, the national gallery with romanian art and the european gallery, the artworks are dating back to the Middle Ages and until the beginning of the 20th century 

• The Museum of Contemporary Art - the building of the museum is hosted in The Palace of The Parliament ( Palatul Parlamentului ) which is the second largest construction in the world and has on display a permanent collection with artworks belonging to the middle of 20th century and until very recent years, besides this, there are organised from time to time new exhibitions and openings

• The Museum of Recent Art - is the first private art museum in Romania opened in 2018 offering the visitors the opportunity to admire a permanent collection and also temporary exhibitions.

  Among the artists whose works are a part of the permanent collection are : Horia Bernea, Florin Mitroi, Paul Neagu, Anca Mureșan, Alexandru Chira, Ioana Bătrânu and many more, all of them being very important romanian artists. 

This last museum is one of my favorite and is really a must see museum both for romanian and international students. The overall aspect of the building and the way in which the exhibitions are curated remainded me of the clean, rational and well organised german museums. 

As I said there are many art galleries, but not all of them are "good". Anyway some that you might consider visiting from my taste and point of view are: 

• Halucinarium

• ArtHalle Gallery

• Galateca

• Galeria Nicodim

• LABORNA Contemporary Art Gallery

• Galeria Anca Poterașu

• Galeria Posibilă

In autumn, usually in the beginning of October there is a big event named "Noaptea Albă a Galeriilor" translated in English as "The white night of the art galleries" when almost all of the galleries are opened to the public from evening to early in the morning.

People can walk from a gallery to another using a map that includes all of the art places taking part in this event. This year more then 60 galleries participated at "The white night of the art galleries". 

The conclusions

I definitely can't say yes, you should come for an Erasmus exchange at our university as well as I can't say no, you should not chose Unarte for an exhange mobility. Somebody's choice depends so much on the intentions, goals and expections a person has from learning at any art university of this world. 

Generally, regarding the painting domain I think that our way ( our teacher's way more corectly) of making and teaching art is much more focused on developing at first skills of observing the reality through lots of studies in relation to drawing, color, shape, technique, composition, examples from the history of art and afterwards applying everything that the student learned in the creation of is own artworks, concepts, ideas and ways of representation by using appropiate techniques and mediums. 

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