Núcleos de sentido en torno al ingreso a la universidad. Relatos de estudiantes de carreras de ciencias aplicadas de la Universidad Nacional de Río Negro

Abstract

Abundant literature refers to failure in university studies. Although the analysis perspectives are varied and put forward a diversity of factors (epochal, social, political-institutional, didactic and subjective) that converge in the success or failure in the first year of university studies, a recurrent argument emphasizes the student's deficits. Rather than asking "what is missing" for the student to succeed in this initial period, our analysis seeks to understand how the new student situation is constructed. Thus, starting from a theoretical option that recovers the contributions of studies on the relationship with knowledge and the interpretive hermeneutic methodological tradition and narrative research, we propose to analyze the set of meanings that the new student builds around the university and in relation with university knowledge. From responses to conversational interviews carried out within the framework of the PI 40-C-581 with 11 students from the freshman cohort entering the university in 2018 and belonging to the three UNRN campus, we identified five major meaning nodes around admission, namely: 1) the University supports and proposes an institutional relationship with knowledge that is seen by incoming students as new, i.e. it differs from that of previously attended institutions; this puts the forms that have been built up to that moment under strain; 2) learning to “cope with failure” (e.g. “failing the course”), a theme intimately linked to the university's own forms of evaluation and accreditation. This arises as an explanatory key regarding the continuity of university studies; 3) Relationship networks are indicated as resources that favor the continuity of studies; 4) the “love" for the chosen career also works as a support, giving continuity to the studies; 5) a series of demands appear towards the institution so that conditions are generated to “enter the university’s situation”. These conditions appear articulated as to allow time to learn the new forms of study and to achieve the required learning outcomes.