The stage prior to joining the Universitat de València can exert an influence in different ways to the subsequent development of the academic career. This previous stage is linked to the different personal, educational, family, economic and cultural conditions that will favor or hinder a more or less satisfactory arrival and adjusted to the decisions made.

One of the processes that marks the pre-university stage is the choice of studies. This is an important process in the life of future university students and in which several factors intervene. For example, the choice of studies can lead to an academic dislocation, defined as a process that involves one or a student not being well placed or with a feeling of not being the place they would like in relation to the chosen studies. The causes can be diverse.

The expression “of being out of place” is taken from interviews with students who relate their arrival at the university or when they talk about their decision to change studies or trajectory towards other options, even outside the university (Villar-Aguilés, García Ros, Hernàndez, Muñoz, 2017). When you arrive at the new place you have to locate, be in place, adapt to new rules, customs, practices. Feeling out of place usually occurs and can trigger a university experience that is not satisfactory, nor adjusted to the expectations configured in the pre-arrival stage.