Is using AI cheating at university?

Not by default. Romanian university policies such as ASE's guide of 25 March 2026 separate assistance from substitution. Brainstorming, structuring, language correction and summarising to understand are assistance. Having AI write your essay, solve problems you do not understand or write your project code is substitution. Rules are set per course, and exams are usually off limits.

Can I use ChatGPT during an exam?

Not unless the exam explicitly allows it. ASE's guide bans any AI tool during exams, in any format, unless the exam subject authorises it, and treats violations as fraud. POLITEHNICA Bucharest's regulation allows it only where a teacher expressly approves, and the FEAA guide at UAIC Iași says AI is not permitted at exams.

How do I study with AI without just getting answers?

Make it ask the questions. Paste your own notes, request practice questions, answer from memory, then have the AI grade you against your notes. Dunlosky et al. (2013) rated practice testing and distributed practice as high utility. Add a tutor prompt that forbids final answers until you have tried twice, and review misses at growing intervals.

Do I have to declare that I used AI?

At ASE, yes. Students declare whether they used generative AI through the declaration in Annex 3 of the guide. For coursework it is part of the paper. For a final thesis it is placed after the table of contents and submitted as a signed separate document. Minor uses such as spelling fixes need no citation. Check your own university's rule.

Can AI invent sources for my paper?

Yes. ASE's guide names references that do not exist as a typical hallucination, and the FEAA guide says citing sources invented by AI is a form of fraud. Look up every source in your library or Google Scholar, open the original, check author, year and DOI, and cite the original, not the chatbot's summary.

AI for Students: How to Study With AI Without Cheating

AI for students works as a tutor, not a ghostwriter. See what ASE and other Romanian universities allow, how to self-test, check sources, cite AI use and prompt it like a tutor.

By Alexandru Secureanu4 October 20267 min read

AI for students works when it explains, quizzes and critiques, and fails when it writes the work you hand in. Romanian universities draw the same line. The guide that ASE Bucharest's Senate approved on 25 March 2026 encourages assistance, forbids substitution, bans AI in exams unless the exam allows it, and asks students to declare their use. Check your course sheet first, then use AI as a tutor: ask it to test you, not to answer for you.

Is using AI cheating? What universities allow and forbid

None of the policies we found treats AI as cheating by default, and none allows it everywhere. The test is assistance versus substitution, applied course by course. At ASE the lecturer sets the AI rules in the course sheet (fișa disciplinei) and must tell students about them at the first meeting of the semester. The ASE guide calls assistance encouraged and gives examples: brainstorming, structuring a plan, correcting grammar and style, summarising a text to understand it better, translating passages. It forbids substitution, meaning generating the content of an essay or paper, solving a problem without understanding the logic, or writing code for a project without personal contribution.

University	Personal study	Graded work	Exams
ASE Bucharest, Senate decision 38 of 25 March 2026	Assistance encouraged	Only where the course sheet allows it. Without instructions, use is not authorised. Substantial use is declared	Forbidden unless the exam subject explicitly allows it
POLITEHNICA Bucharest, AI regulation	Not covered in the passages we read	Use must be declared. Forbidden for drafting, generating or rephrasing the original-contribution parts of theses	Forbidden unless a teacher expressly approves
UAIC Iași, FEAA student guide	Yes	Conditional on the guide's instructions and the teacher's conditions	Not permitted

ASE's default is a rule it states in Latin, in dubio contra: with no specific instruction, AI use is not authorised, and passing off AI output as your own work is treated as plagiarism. The guide also calls AI-detection tools unreliable and without evidentiary value, so do not count on a detector to protect you. We could not find a university-wide AI policy for the University of Bucharest, so ask your faculty. Internationally, the Russell Group of UK universities published five principles on 3 July 2023: AI literacy for staff and students, adapted teaching and assessment, upholding academic rigour and integrity, and the freedom to ask questions about specific uses without fear of penalisation.

How can AI explain a concept so it sticks?

Ask it to explain, then make it test you. Summarising a chapter you have not read teaches you little. An explanation pitched at your level, with a worked example, teaches more. Then reverse the roles and explain the idea back in your own words.

Explain [concept]. I know [prerequisite] but not [new idea].
Use one worked example. Then ask me three questions to check
that I understood, and wait for my answers before you reply.

Paste only your own notes. ASE tells users never to send personal data or confidential material to public AI tools, advises using opt-out settings where possible so conversations are not reused for training, and the FEAA guide forbids pasting copyrighted texts into them.

How do I use AI for practice questions and spaced repetition?

Testing yourself beats rereading. Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) reviewed ten common study techniques and rated practice testing and distributed practice as high utility, the only two of the ten to get that rating. AI makes both cheaper to set up.

Paste your own notes and ask for 10 questions at exam difficulty, mixing recall and application.
Answer in writing from memory before you look at anything.
Ask the AI to grade your answers strictly against your notes and list the gaps.
Turn each miss into a flashcard.
Review at growing intervals, for example the next day, after 3 days, after a week and after two weeks. That schedule is a common starting point, not a figure from the review.

AI-written questions and answers can be wrong, so check them against the syllabus and real past papers. Two free resources built by Danube Labs' founder, who studies at ASE, help here. The BAC exam archive holds 3,840 official exam documents from 2012 onwards across 13 subjects, with marking schemes. The ASE materials index collects study materials and quiz sites by programme, year, semester and course. It is an independent student resource, not an official ASE site.

Can AI review my draft without writing it for me?

Yes, if you ask for critique and keep the pen. Ask where the argument is unclear, which claims lack evidence, what a sceptic would object to and whether the structure follows your thesis. Then fix each point in your own words. ASE counts structuring and language correction as assistance, and its guide lets you skip citing minor uses such as short translations and spelling or grammar fixes. POLITEHNICA Bucharest goes further for theses and forbids AI drafting or rephrasing of the original-contribution parts.

Read my draft below as a strict examiner. List the five weakest
points and explain each. Do not rewrite any sentence.

How do I get coding help and still learn to code?

ASE lists writing code for a programming project without personal contribution as forbidden, and an oral defence will expose code you cannot explain. Try the problem first. Ask for a hint, not a solution, and ask the AI to explain an error message line by line. Write the tests yourself, trace the code by hand and ask for a review after it runs. Be able to explain every line to a lecturer. AI also invents functions and options that do not exist, so run everything and read the official documentation, as our guide on avoiding AI hallucinations explains.

I am stuck on [task]. Here is my code and the error.
Give me one hint that points at the cause. Do not write the fix.

How do I research with AI and check the sources?

ASE warns that AI can produce references that do not exist and attribute quotes wrongly, and says every fact and source must be verified. The FEAA guide goes further: citing non-existent sources invented by AI is a form of fraud. It also says tools such as Perplexity, Elicit, Scite and ResearchRabbit can help you find sources, as long as you consult the original.

Ask the AI for keywords, search terms and candidate papers.
Look each paper up in your library catalogue or Google Scholar.
Open the original. Check author, year, DOI and that the claim really appears in it.
Cite the original, never the chatbot's summary of it.

Our guide to using AI well adds habits for checking any answer.

How do I cite and declare AI use?

ASE asks that any substantial use of an AI tool to generate text, code, images or video be mentioned, and it allows skipping minor uses. Its suggested format is: creator of the AI tool, (year of the version used), name of the tool (version) [type of model], URL. Separately, ASE requires students to declare whether they used AI, using the declaration in Annex 3 of the guide. For coursework the declaration is part of the paper. For a final thesis it goes in the body right after the table of contents and is also submitted as a signed separate document when enrolling for the final exam. ASE grounds this in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, under which hiding the use of automated tools to create content counts as a breach of integrity. Keep a log of your prompts so you can answer honestly, and ask the lecturer when a case is unclear.

Which prompts turn AI into a tutor?

Paste this once at the start of a study session, then add your topic.

Act as my tutor for [course]. Never give a final answer first.
Ask one question at a time, give a hint if I am wrong twice,
and only then explain. After each topic, quiz me on it and
list what I got wrong so I can review it tomorrow.

It works because it keeps the effort on your side, which is where learning happens, and it stays inside the line ASE draws between assistance and substitution.

A routine that fits a normal week, as a suggestion: after each lecture, spend 15 minutes writing questions from your notes. Once a week, run a 30-minute quiz session with the tutor prompt. Before an exam, work through timed past papers with no AI at all, because the exam will not have it either.

Want AI built and measured properly?

Danube Labs is a one-person studio in Bucharest run by a founder who still studies at ASE. If a company you work with wants an AI feature built and evaluated rather than guessed at, see AI systems.

Frequently asked questions

Is using AI cheating at university?: Not by default. Romanian university policies such as ASE's guide of 25 March 2026 separate assistance from substitution. Brainstorming, structuring, language correction and summarising to understand are assistance. Having AI write your essay, solve problems you do not understand or write your project code is substitution. Rules are set per course, and exams are usually off limits.
Can I use ChatGPT during an exam?: Not unless the exam explicitly allows it. ASE's guide bans any AI tool during exams, in any format, unless the exam subject authorises it, and treats violations as fraud. POLITEHNICA Bucharest's regulation allows it only where a teacher expressly approves, and the FEAA guide at UAIC Iași says AI is not permitted at exams.
How do I study with AI without just getting answers?: Make it ask the questions. Paste your own notes, request practice questions, answer from memory, then have the AI grade you against your notes. Dunlosky et al. (2013) rated practice testing and distributed practice as high utility. Add a tutor prompt that forbids final answers until you have tried twice, and review misses at growing intervals.
Do I have to declare that I used AI?: At ASE, yes. Students declare whether they used generative AI through the declaration in Annex 3 of the guide. For coursework it is part of the paper. For a final thesis it is placed after the table of contents and submitted as a signed separate document. Minor uses such as spelling fixes need no citation. Check your own university's rule.
Can AI invent sources for my paper?: Yes. ASE's guide names references that do not exist as a typical hallucination, and the FEAA guide says citing sources invented by AI is a form of fraud. Look up every source in your library or Google Scholar, open the original, check author, year and DOI, and cite the original, not the chatbot's summary.