Recruitment and retention issues continue to be prevalent in all domains of nursing practice. Nursing students’ transition into practice is an understudied area of this concern. This study specifically explored the question: How do fourth year nursing students make meaning of their transition to professional practice? Data was collected from twenty-two field note journals and seven face-to-face interviews emerging from a capstone nursing theory course focused on nursing leadership, relational ethics, complex healthcare contexts and responsive action. For the participants of this study, the meaning of transitioning to practice manifested as: developing complex identity awareness, mediating expectations in the struggle with uncertainty; and longing to belong in the midst of feeling alien. The paper provides recommendations for pedagogical practice and for capacity building to bridge the tensions of the competing discourses of transition to professional practice within complex health care settings