Transition from school or college to university is a time of great anxiety for many first-year undergraduates: some studies illustrate the emphasis which students place on finding new friends and securing a consistent social life; the importance of which resonates more with peers than with parents or lecturers. This has to be accomplished simultaneously with assimilation of the institutional norms and values of a new environment. In particular, the all-pervasive concept of independent learning, which is often assumed to be a self-evident skill, is a source of concern to many freshers. Portfolios constructed by second-year students employed as peer-assisted learning leaders illustrate how newcomers are inducted into a community of learning by means of the educative: a process of informal socialisation dependent on empathetic reflection.