Experiencing studying in a phenomenographic analysis of the utterances of young adults from Z-Generation

The aim of this article is to present the results of an analysis of indepth phenomenographic interviews conducted with young adults studying the humanities and social sciences in the Polish higher education system. The authors conducted twenty interviews in 2022 and 2023 with individuals who represented the next generation of university students in their families, focusing on their experiences of studying. The authors conceptualise these experiences from the perspective of representatives of Generation Z in the following ways: (a) as a transition to the next stage in the formal education system, leading to the acquisition of higher qualifications; (b) as a learning process for acquiring and deepening knowledge; (c) as a life stage characterised by the absence of parental care; (d) as the assumption of the student role associated with belonging to an institution such as a university; and (e) as building relationships within and outside university. The authors interpret the identified categories of description as follows: as a consequence of the popularisation of the educational process and its normalisation in everyday life; as a result of students’ intrinsic motivation, derived from cultural capital and aligned with the perception of knowledge acquisition as a developmental process; as an outcome of limited opportunities to practice social competencies in earlier stages of schooling; and as an effect of rapid civilisa