Student affairs work requires the complex interplay of specialized knowledge and skills within a rapidly changing context. Although the profession has increasingly relied on graduate training programs to provide new practitioners with foundation in these knowledge and skills, perennial concerns arise regarding the preparation and effectiveness of recent graduates. Whereas previous literature has examined graduate preparation as a socialization process, by which individuals adjust to new organizational contexts and construct professional identity, I center the learning that occurs within and between coursework and fieldwork contexts. Specifically, I wanted to explore how learning was distributed across and mediated by multiple learning environments; the tools students accessed, used, and adapted during their graduate training; and the tensions within and across learning environments that spurred student transformation.In order to answer these questions, I conducted a qualitative case study and activity system analysis of four students enrolled in the Student Affairs Preparation (SAP) program (pseudonym), a Master's-level graduate training program at Brady University (pseudonym). I conducted semi-structured interviews with each of the participants during the fall and spring semesters of their second year in the SAP program. These conversations focused on students' learning and experiences in coursework contexts, in fieldwork contexts, and between these two environments. Participants also provided supplemental written materials (e.g., reflection papers, course assignments) that demonstrated their learning throughout their graduate training.Analysis of the data revealed that, although learning occurred in both fieldwork and coursework contexts, students' experiences in fieldwork greatly mediated how they responded to and made meaning of content from their coursework. Indeed, students used their fieldwork experiences and messages from their fieldwork supervisors to determine the nature of student affairs work and, consequently, the utility of particular knowledge and skills for doing that work. Students sought out, used, and adapted those tools-conceptual and material-immediately applicable to their current work or the work they envisioned doing after graduation. Additionally, students spoke to a variety of tensions within and across learning environments requiring them to think differently about the nature of their own professional practice or the nature of the student affairs profession.
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