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Students with Children Balance Books with Diapers
Iulia Roşca, Alexandra Zachi
For some students, campus life is more than attending classes, cramming for exams, clubbing and late night conversations with friends. Some choose the responsibility of raising a family while they work for their degrees and have to balance their studies with the need to wake up in the middle of the night to feed a baby.
For married students and those with children, the universities have special dormitories or designated rooms in certain dormitories. It is not difficult to get such a room and the couple living together do not both have to be students. However, there are no special facilities for child care.
Mariana is 24 years old and a graduate at the Faculty of Public Administration. She lives with her partner, a student at Politehnica, in the P23 dorm in Regie. They had been together for four years when they decided to get married, but they haven’t have the wedding yet.
 “Our priority for the future is finding a place to stay. After that, everything falls into place. We plan to have a baby, but only when we have an apartment to live in. Here the space is too tiny, plus there is a common bathroom,” Mariana said. “We both work, but it’s hard to save money for an apartment. We will have the wedding and then start looking for a place.”
Mihaela Sârbu, a third year chemistry student who lives with her husband in the same dorm, is less optimistic. They have a two-year-old child and she complains about the conditions. “There are three of us in one room. The child doesn’t have enough space, that is the hardest part here,” she said. She is about to graduate and soon they will have to move. So far, they haven’t found a place.
“I will be in the street in two months. I have been looking for a job but I can’t find one and I don’t know what we can do with 120 RON that my husband earns. We have had our file at the National Agency of Homes (ANL) for two years, but they have told us to us to wait. We were invited on to Marina Almăşan’s TV show regarding this, and we thought something will change. Nothing did, they still tell us to wait,” she said.
The C1 and C2 dormitories belonging to the Academy of Economical Sciences (ASE) in the Agronomy campus have special studio flats on every floor intended for married couples. Irina, a fourth year student at the Faculty of Marketing who comes from the Republic of Moldova lives in one of them with her husband, to whom she has been married for less than a year, and their seven-month-old baby boy.
“We decided to get married after I got pregnant. People were a little surprised that I wanted to have the baby, because they thought it would be hard. The parents had to get used to it. It isn’t too difficult for us, financially speaking. My husband works and I stay with the baby. Everybody is very nice to us here, especially to our baby boy,” she said.
University of Bucharest offers rooms for married couples only upon request. “If they want to live together, the faculties make a switch. For example, if the girl moves with the boy, the boy’s faculty must provide her with a place, and the girl gives her place to another person in that dorm,” an official at the University of Bucharest explained.
Irina Ionela Paun is one such case. A fourth year student at the Faculty of Biology, she has a month-old baby girl. “Normally they are supposed to give the husband a place, but I had to run around until they did that for about two months while I was pregnant. Finally the administrator was the one who gave him the place in the room,” she said.
She is optimistic about her education, despite the news responsibilities of parenthood. “I took all my exams. My mother or my mother-in-law comes to stay with the baby when I need it. In the future, I would like to get a masters degree.
“We are OK financially. Of course, if it were only for my financial aid, about 200 RON, we would have died of hunger. But my husband earns money in construction,” she said.
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