This paper explores what students taking an international project-based course in computer systems strive to learn. Through empirical, phenomenographic work we have identified three different motives that the students strive for: academic achievement; project and team working capacity; and social competence. What a student strives to learn largely influence the nature of her or his learning. Thus, the students can be thought of as taking different courses. Furthermore, the three motives can be experienced in different ways which can be more or less fruitful depending on what a student tries to achieve. We argue that it is important for a teacher to be aware of the variation in what the students want to learn, and to teach in a way that is cognizant of this spectrum of student goals. (Contains 3 tables and 1 note.)