Learn Hardcore Russian: Учебный год в университете интересный. - The academic year at the university is interesting.

The base noun is университет (nominative, masculine).
After the preposition в meaning “in/at” (location), Russian usually uses the prepositional case.
The standard masculine prepositional ending is -е, so:
- университет → в университете (“in/at the university”).

So в университете literally means “in the university / at the university.”

Why is it учебный год, not учебный года?

Because год is the subject of the sentence, and subjects in a neutral statement are in the nominative case.

год – nominative singular (“year”).
года is a different form (genitive singular or nominative plural, depending on context), used in other structures, e.g.:
- нет года – “there is no year” (genitive singular after нет),
- три года – “three years” (special counting form).

Here we simply have:

Учебный год (что?) – nominative, “the academic year” (subject), so год stays in its base nominative form, not года.

What is the grammatical role of интересный in this sentence?

Интересный is a predicate adjective. Grammatically:

Учебный год в университете = the subject (what we’re talking about).
интересный = what we say about the subject (its property).

In Russian, the predicate adjective:

Stands in the nominative case,
Agrees in gender, number, and (here) case with the subject noun.

Subject: год – masculine, singular, nominative.
Predicate adjective: интересный – masculine, singular, nominative (ending -ый) to match год.

Why is интересный at the end? Can it come earlier in the sentence?

Putting интересный at the end is the most neutral, natural order:

Учебный год в университете интересный.

You can move parts around for emphasis, for example:

В университете учебный год интересный. – Emphasis on “At the university…”
Учебный год интересный в университете. – Sounds unusual; suggests contrast like “The academic year is interesting at the university (maybe not elsewhere).”

But the basic, most typical word order is: [Subject] [place/time] [predicate adjective] → Учебный год в университете интересный.

Why do both adjectives учебный and интересный end in -ый?

Both adjectives are masculine, singular, long-form adjectives agreeing with год:

год – masculine singular noun.
Attributive adjective (before the noun): учебный (“academic”, “study-related”).
Predicate adjective (after the rest of the subject): интересный (“interesting”).

In the nominative masculine singular, the standard long-form adjective endings are -ый / -ий.
So both adjectives take -ый to match the gender and number of год:

учебный год – “academic year”
год … интересный – “the year … is interesting”

Could we say Учебный год в университете интересен instead of интересный? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Учебный год в университете интересен.

Интересен is the short form of the adjective. Differences:

интересный (long form)
- Neutral, everyday style.
- Very common in speech and writing.
интересен (short form)
- Feels a bit more formal, bookish, or emphatic.
- Often focuses more sharply on the quality itself (“is interesting”).

In most conversational contexts, интересный is more usual, but интересен is also perfectly correct and stylistically fine, especially in written or slightly more formal language.

Why is it в университете and not в университет?

The form depends on whether you mean “in/at” (location) or “into” (direction).

в университете – prepositional case, “in/at the university” (location, where something happens).
в университет – accusative case, “into the university” (direction, motion towards).

In this sentence we’re talking about where the academic year is interesting (its setting), not movement into the university, so we use в университете.

Why do we use в and not на with университет?

By convention, Russian uses:

в университете – “at the university / in the university”

With educational institutions, в is standard:

в школе – at school
в университете – at university
в институте – at an institute

You do see на with certain institutions or organizations (e.g. на факультете – “in the faculty”, на курсе – “in the year/level of study”), but with университет itself, в университете is the normal, idiomatic choice.

Is учебный год a fixed expression? Why not just say год?

Учебный год is a common set phrase meaning “academic year / school year” – the year as organized by an educational institution.

год alone is just “year” in the general sense.
учебный год specifies “the year of study / academic year”.

You could say Год в университете интересный, and it would be understood from context, but it sounds less precise. Учебный год clearly tells us we mean the academic year (with its semesters, classes, etc.), not just any calendar year someone happens to spend at a university.

Why doesn’t Russian use articles like “the” or “a” here?

Russian simply has no articles. Ideas that English expresses with “a / an / the” are usually shown by:

Word order,
Context,
Sometimes using этот (“this”), тот (“that”), один (“one, a certain”) and similar words.

In this sentence:

Учебный год в университете интересный.

can correspond to:

“The academic year at the university is interesting.”
“An academic year at a university is interesting.” (more general statement)

Usually, context will tell the listener whether you mean a specific, known academic year or a general fact.

Can we drop в университете and just say Учебный год интересный?

Yes, grammatically you can say:

Учебный год интересный. – “The academic year is interesting.”

The difference is in specificity:

Учебный год интересный. – a general comment about an academic year (or the academic year you’re both already talking about).
Учебный год в университете интересный. – specifies where: “the academic year at the university is interesting,” which contrasts, for example, with:
- Учебный год в школе тяжёлый. – “The school year at school is hard.”

How should I pronounce учебный год в университете интересный? Where are the main stresses?

Stresses:

уче́бный – uCHÉB-nyy (stress on -че́б-)
год – god (full vowel, one syllable)
в – v (very short, almost attached to the next word)
университе́те – u-ni-ver-si-TYÉ-te (stress on -те́-)
интере́сный – in-te-RYÉS-nyy (stress on -ре́с-)

Rough syllable breakdown with stressed syllables in caps:

u-CHÉB-nyy god v u-ni-ver-si-TYÉ-te in-te-RYÉS-nyy.

Make sure not to reduce stressed vowels and to soften the т before е in университете and интересный (it sounds like tye, tyes).