In this study, we explore how interactions with faculty influence
first-year geoscience students’ negotiations of belonging in a study
programme. We situate the study within the field of retention and
use the concepts of belonging and culture to analyse our empirical
material, collected through ethnographic fieldwork. We explore
how faculty–student interactions during geoscientific fieldwork
and in an “interview exercise” give students access to explicit and
tacit knowledge about doing geoscience research, the department
culture and possible careers in geoscience. The analysis shows that
faculty–student interactions offer important avenues for the students’
negotiations of how they belong in the study programme
(who they are) and in assessing their future possibilities (who they
want to become). However, while positive for some students, the
perceived needs to be highly devoted to the discipline and to
perform in the field poses challenges for other students’ sense of
belonging in the geoscience programme. By situating activities in
the wider context of the culture of the study programme and
analysing the combined effect of different faculty–students interactions,
we find that institutions must offer first-year students
possibilities for creating a sense of belonging that are varied,
authentic and inclusive.