There are no tuition fees, students receive a monthly non-refundable governmental grant, and admission is based on upper secondary school grades. This setting frame the expectations and notions of being a student in Denmark. It produces a strong responsibility on the individual student; we assume that every young have access to higher education and that completion is a matter of talent, individual effort, and whether student’s work hard enough during their studies. As a consequence, class and gender for example are not pointed out as influential in the public discourse on the participation and retention of students - instead a lot of attention is payed to whether students use their time efficiently. Research, however has shown, that Danish students achievements do not depend on the student alone. The discipline and its culture play a significant role in the student’s negotiation processes and influences participation and retention. In the presentation, we unfold a longitudinal study where we followed students through their first year at an interdisciplinary bachelor programme. We give examples of how students’ engage and negotiate with the interdisciplinary curriculum and culture to balance their expectations of the programme with their experiences of teaching, and views of possible futures.