Why study biology at university? Students’ motivation texts do not only yield answers to this question, but information about their understanding of participation in higher biology education. What are their explicit and especially implicit concepts of what it needs to participate and how do they create a sense of belonging? Situated in a larger project on identity work of students in higher biology education, this study analyses 55 first year undergraduate biology students’ motivation texts using discourse analysis in a framework of figured worlds. The aim is to identify socially and culturally constructed realms of what is recognized; which ways of talking and which ways of doing are taken for granted and are valued over others – beyond the explicit. Drawing on figured worlds acknowledges the contemporaneity of activity, discourse and performance taking place in a complex socioculturally constructed space of higher science education. Reflections on who it is that has access to resources such as language needed to enter and participate successfully in higher science education communities are made possible. First results of this study show three main figured worlds present in the texts: the figured world of interest, the figured world of biology as a discipline and the figured world of the academic career. Presence and absence of those figured worlds are points of departure for discussions on accessibility and (in)equalities in higher biology and science education.