European higher education systems are currently characterized by three drivers of change: the transition to mass university, the Bologna Process  and the advent of knowledge economy (Regini 2011). In this context the re-orientation and drop-out processes are considered as a representation of the ineffectiveness of the university systems and are a crucial indicator of international university ranking. Drop-out levels differ widely among the European Union countries:  we can divide the countries into two blocks, those for which the university dropout rate exceeds 40% (like Italy where the drop-out rate stands about 55%) and those for which the dropout rate is below 20 percent (like France where the rate of "décrochage", reaches approximately 18%).

This article focuses on the strategies that university students of university Sapienza and Paris Diderot carried out to face problems met during their university career, particularly the re-orientation processes. The interviewed students who re-oriented their university career succeeded in every case to overcome – with difficulty- the drop-out risk .  

There are different elements that can lead to a re-orientation process: first university choice without sufficient information; the influence of secondary scholar background; difficulty to interiorize university practice; difficulty to acquire autonomy (Coulon 1997, Beaupère Boudessol 2009).                  

According to Alain Coulon the re-orientation experience and the risk of drop-out occur when the student can not to find his reference points within the university and although he has tried to follow the daily university practices he still feels a stranger. This feeling of alienation sometimes leads to loneliness and inability to deal with this feeling (Coulon 1997). Coulon in the “Métier d’étudiant” shows that the process of re-orientation and the drop-out will occur in the first month of university life.

In the re-orientation process  the subject faces a crisis phase from a psychological, educational and social point of view. The university experience then turns into the "Epreuve de separation" separation trial as described by Michaël Vauthier (2006).

The results of my research present two kinds of approaches students generally use to tackle the re-orientation process: re-orientation lived as an “opportunity” and re-orientation lived as a “burden”.

The re-orientation as an opportunity allows students to assert their will, respect the influences of family and social background that through the “Habitus” process described by Bourdieu and Passeron  in “Les Herities”(1964) influence directly and indirectly student’s choices.

The re-orientation as a burden can generate feelings of suffering and guilt during all the university career due to high expectations set socially and personally with the first choice. Considering university experience as a profession, it is possible to compare the fracture of identity that is to occur within any professional context, the dynamics of risk, fracture occurring in a situation of failure and re-orientation as burden (Beaupere and Boudesseul 2009, Giust 1989, Viteritti 2005).

From the narratives of the students considered, it became clear that guidance policies implemented in both university systems considered were not significant during the university's selection process .

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