Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-23
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Bryn Williams-Jones, Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Montreal
Many students arrive at university thinking that success is simple: follow the program, complete the required assignments, get good grades, and make progress. And, in many cases, that’s exactly what they do – they meet expectations, pass their courses, and advance in their academic and professional journey. However, many discover along the way that more was expected of them than just good grades, and that it then becomes difficult to catch up on this gap.
Over the past twenty years, as a university professor, I have often seen some of the most capable students – thoughtful, diligent, and clearly committed – find themselves in difficulty when they move on to higher education. They become uncertain and frustrated when recognition does not match the significant time and effort they have invested. This is generally not due to a lack of ability, but to a misunderstanding of what academic success really requires – they have not learned the rules of the game because these were never clearly explained to them.
A set of tacit norms
University life is structured by a set of tacit norms, rarely articulated and often taken for granted. Students are expected to demonstrate intellectual initiative and creativity, and not just complete the assigned tasks.
They are expected to take risks – ask questions, experiment, question what they learn, propose their own ideas. They must also learn to position themselves in their field, interact with others, and showcase their work – for example by presenting at conferences, contacting professors to participate in research projects, or attempting to publish their first ideas, even in modest venues such as student journals or outreach platforms.
These skills are not secondary: they are at the heart of academic and professional success. Yet, they are rarely taught explicitly.
Also to read:
Attracting the “best brains” from the United States to Quebec universities? Numbers against magical thinking
Formal criteria and informal criteria
As professors, and within university programs, we devote a lot of effort to explaining the formal evaluation criteria necessary to pass courses and earn degrees. We also increasingly offer professional development training to prepare students for careers outside the academic environment.
On the other hand, we do much less to help them understand how university institutions actually work – how expectations are formed, how decisions are made, and how to learn to navigate this environment, especially at the graduate levels. Too often, we assume that they will acquire this knowledge simply through osmosis.
Part of the problem comes from us, the professors. Having ourselves learned to navigate these expectations, and having managed to establish ourselves in the academic environment, we tend to consider these elements as obvious. We assume that the strongest students will “understand,” that they will be able to identify what matters and adapt accordingly. And when they fail, it is tempting to conclude that they simply have not made enough effort.
The functioning of the university institution
But this hypothesis overlooks a crucial point: female and male students do not enter the university with the same understanding of how it operates.
From their point of view, a large part of academic life remains opaque. In undergraduate studies, professors mostly appear as teachers – some students even joke by imagining that they live in their offices. As they progress in their studies, they discover more of the research dimension, but still in a fragmented way.
Already thousands of subscribers to the newsletter ofLa Conversation. And you? Subscribe to our freenewsletterto better understand the major contemporary issues.
Many elements remain largely invisible: the time devoted to preparing courses, the work required to write articles and grant applications and to deal with refusals, the administrative tasks that structure academic life, as well as the informal norms that guide evaluation and recognition.
Yet, students are expected to evolve within a system whose fundamental expectations have never been fully explained to them.
Also to read:
Between progress and obstacles: where do university professors stand in Canada?
An initial inequity
This shift can also reinforce someexisting inequalities. Some people arrive at the university with prior familiarity with the academic environment — through their family background, their own journey, or forms of informal mentorship — and are thus better positioned to understand these implicit rules. Others have to discover them on their own, often through trial and error. In a competitive environment, this difference is decisive. What we consider “obvious” has actually been learned, and not in an equivalent manner for everyone.
This situation refers to what several studies describe as a“Hidden curriculum”Â: a set of implicit norms and unspoken expectations that structure university pathways and that students must learn to decode throughout their education.
Students of course have a role to play. Actively engaging, asking questions, seeking opportunities to get involved, and taking intellectual risks are integral parts of their development. Learning to identify and understand implicit expectations is itself a skill that goes beyond the academic setting, as all professional and social environments rely on unwritten rules.
But this responsibility cannot rest solely on their shoulders. If we expect them to operate in complex and often implicit contexts, we must also take our share by making these expectations more explicit – in our way of teaching and supervising, and in the structure of the programs.
For the “academic game” to be transparent
I tried to make some of these rules more visible through writings intended for a wide audience, notably on myblogweekly and in an open-access work devoted to the rules of“academic game”. The goal is not to provide a recipe for success, but to offer landmarks and make more clear what already shapes student trajectories.
The university is not only a place for acquiring knowledge. It is also a space where one learns to navigate a particular intellectual and institutional culture. If we expect students to succeed there, then leaving its implicit rules unspoken is not neutral. Making them explicit does not simplify the game – it allows more people to participate under fairer conditions.
Bryn Williams-Jones does not work for, advise, hold shares in, or receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no affiliation other than his research institution.
–ref. Why some succeed at university without being “better students” –https://theconversation.com/why-some-succeed-at-university-without-being-the-best-students-280111