This paper reports on a study that took a cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional approach to investigate postgraduate student expectations and experiences in internationalised and globalised higher education. The researchers drew on Giddens' theory of structuration. They explored the way samples of specialist medicine trainees in the UK and pre-service teacher education students in Australia identify and make meaning of their circumstances in an era that is increasingly characterised by greater internationalisation of the student body and more globalised curricula. In this paper, we discuss some of the tensions students reported encountering, and propose several ways in which such tensions might be counteracted.