The paper deals with the relationship between opinions on migration and optimism at Romanian academics. The Romanian higher education sector was an important source for brain drain during the 1990s, a phenomenon that largely preceded the wave of Romanian labor migration to European countries. Romanian brain drain emerged in the framework of a highly positive valuation of emigration in the academic sector and a mostly pessimistic view on the expected development of research and higher education in the country. We present results from an opinion poll among academics, conducted in the year 2000, that showcases the image on emigration that the Romanian higher education system transmitted through its hidden curriculum. We will discuss the interrelation between optimism regarding one’s own future and the future of society, and the opinions on emigration especially focusing on a projective advice to emigrate that the academic would give to its own children.