The tentative process of becoming a student

Students’ experiences of the transition to tertiary education show it to be a tentative and interpretive process, yet it often remains theorized as fitting-in, adjusting to, or integrating into the tertiary education environment. Previous studies positioned the notion of ‘becoming a student’ as an alternative approach to conceptualise the transition from the perspective of students as a contextual and dynamic process of learning to take up a new role. Deploying this empirically understudied perspective to grasp students lived experiences and better understand the transition to tertiary education, we interviewed fourteen first-year students at three points in time during the first semester of university. Their narratives highlighted the tentative nature of the transition process, with recurring doubts as part of their continuous reinterpretation of their university experiences. What students expected from tertiary education varied, from finding a purpose to achieving upward mobility, depending on their biographies and concomitant self-perceptions. The interviews revealed students’ efforts not so much to fit into a study environment as to fit their studies into their lives and life stories. As such, transitioning to tertiary education is a biographical practice. Based on these findings we discuss how this contextualized understanding of the transition process can lead to different pedagogical and policy choices: rethinking how and where students’ should participate and how and where universities should facilitate.