The DFG-project QUEST was initiated by Margret Bülow- Schramm and Detlef Garz and started in April 2001. The aim is to explore students' constructions of their "life worlds" (Schütz / Luckmann, 1975) with an integrated and extensively grounded approach to the biographic constraints and chances. QUEST deals - as a qualitative longitudinal study - among others with the question if and how students combine their dispositions with everyday life to build up significant strategies of studying, according to Bourdieu's concept of the "Habitus" (Bourdieu, 1971, 1972, 1988). Unlike other social influence-orientated approaches, we predominantly focus on the subject's perspective. A panel of first-year students has been recruited out of diverse disciplines. Data are surveyed diachronically through narrative interviews in two times and synchronically through partly pre-structured diaries in seven periods over two years. For the biographical approach of the interviews we use the "Narrationsstrukturelle Methode" (Schütze, 1983, 1984). It serves as an instrument for the analysis of the interviews, objectifying the students' narrative structures. For the synchronic approach of the diaries we apply the "Objektive Hermeneutik" (Oevermann, 1979, 2000), exploring latent models of sense, additionally to traditional time-budget analysis and formal characterisations. These two levels of analysis are crossed over within each single case. Certain cases are selected by the distinct criteria "social background", "university discipline" and "strategies of studying". The remaining cases are, at the end, classified to types. At the time of the conference we will be able to present the results, especially concerning the questions in which way and for what reasons students might have established or changed certain strategies of studying. At the round table, we would like to focus specifically on three issues. Firstly, the analysis of the diaries with the method of the "Objektive Hermeneutik". A short, original diary's text sequence of one of the cases will be selected that we are going to analyse immediately and spontaneously. Secondly, we would like to discuss the profit of the actually used methods and reflect on further perspectives of exploring the "Habitus" in decisive developmental stages. As a third contribution we might discuss problems and strategies of classifying single cases to types. To give you a first impression of our so far-reached research, we would like to present - as a short excerpt of the project with regard to reproductive strategies of studying - one of the single cases. The following notes derive from both the diaries and the first interview. Rosa Zech - whose name and case has been made anonymous as well as the others - grew up as a daughter of an regionally famous and wealthy entrepreneur in a small town. For that reason, Rosa felt stigmatised in her childhood and youth, additionally she acquired a "difficulty in hearing". Firstly, she chose a strategy of compensation by over-keen adaptation, but this led to an image of the "kind and good girl" which she refused while accepting a growing distance. A sport's injury became a catalytic event. In opposite to her mother she agreed on an operation which led among other consequences to the ending of an semi-professional career as a golf player. She decided to take up her studies in pedagogic in a big city far away from her home town. In spite of this obvious emancipation, she seems to be beholden to significant aspects of her habitus: She justifies strongly occasional periods of relaxation, acts with an enormous caution that information could be used against her. She names persons nearly only with regard to their positions. She describes that the choice of her subject happened intuitively. This mode is free of rational choice and can be interpreted as an outcome of her habitus. In which way do these dispositions differ from the culture of the subject she chose? Pedagogic is a young, non-classical subject and left wing-orientated. Students often bring in moral aims which professors try to substitute with the understanding of professional services. A clear canon of knowledge has not been established in favour of a mainly discourse culture. Professional perspectives consist of social rather than industrial services. Work is in comparison to other academic domains paid badly and predominantly organised in projects. Students often derive from non-academic backgrounds. They communicate a lot in several autonomous tutorialsObviously, there are intersections as well as discrepancies between Rosa and her subject. She shows a talent for the observation and the description of situations of learning, but there is no tradition for a non-economic subject in her family. On the other hand, Rosa goes together well with the frequent moral aims of the other students who identify pedagogic with help. Nevertheless, the political tendencies and the discourse character within the subject's culture and the low average income of the other students do contrast strongly with her social background. Either she will greet this discrepancies or get disturbed and isolated. Three factors will be decisive for a successful integration into the subject's culture. Firstly, there's an open question to which grade she will be interested in scientific contents additionally to learning situations. Secondly, she would have to overcome the distance towards other persons. Last, not least, she has not developed any future thoughts, e.g. concerning a profession or the way she would like to live in general. As a type we classify Rosa as "Zauderer", i.e. hesitator / ditherer, in contrast to the other types which are the "family- orientated careerists", "reflective individualists" and the "curious-strained". At the conference, we would like to discuss the development of the cases and the change of the characterisation after the first year of studying.