Higher education expands and Swedish universities are obliged to strive for widened recruitment (SCB u.å.; SFS 1998:1434). However, admission to university doesn´t mean a graduation is guaranteed and the teachers’ training programme for Swedish upper secondary education struggles especially with a large number of defections (UKÄ 2017). The student role concerns both rights and obligations (UKÄ 2020) but how does students perceive these aspects when failing an important exam? This study aims to demonstrate in what way students manage misfortunes in their studies and how this reflect the way they perceive their role as students. The empirical material consists of interviews with 8 teacher training students, all experienced in failing exams in one way or another. The analysis of the student’s reflexive processes is accomplished through the lens of different approaches of agency (e.g. Ketokivi & Meskus 2015; Erofeeva 2019) and Mead’s view of reflexivity within social interactionism theory (Lundin 2008). The result shows that failing exams has many implications for the student role, both practically and at an ontology level connected to the future role as a teacher. The students picture themselves as constantly trying to read what is asked of them since the requirements for passing an exam are vague and differ between courses. The students consider themselves responsible for failing, but when it comes to their strategies to comprehend a new test their agency has an outlook orientation including other actors, objects and material settings. This suggests that the students are in need of a concrete structure to accomplish their studies, which addresses time, physical objects and significant others.