This article conducts an exploration of Romania's European integration process through higher education. It contends that integration occurs at "formal" and "informal levels" through institutional norms and human agency, respectively. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, the authors discuss the modalities through which normative European integration is undergirded by human transactions stemming from individual experiences with European practices. Romanian higher education serves as an aggregating and filtering system for the formation of an intellectual realm conducive to the country's deeper European integration.