Exploring Changes in Mobility when starting University: Modes of Transportation and Activity Space of Young People in Santiago, Chile

Entry or transition to university is a relevant milestone in the biographical trajectories of young people and their family groups, which has promoted a diverse field of interdisciplinary research to understand the implications of this process. From the perspective of Urban Studies, this issue has been addressed from the experience of young people in their journeys to their places of study and the modes of transport they use. However, addressing it is still a challenge for this process from a perspective inscribed in mobility biographies, that is to say, with attention to the changes they experience in their mobility. In this work, changes in the urban mobility of young people are identified, specifically, changes in modes of transportation and in the space of social activities during the process of transition to university of young people in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago. To this end, the results of a self-administered survey of young people who started university in undergraduate programs in 2023 are reported. The results show that those who start university undergo changes that make the modes of transportation and social activities more sensitive at the neighborhood and municipal scale; that the changes affect socialization, leisure, and recreation activities carried out by young people more; and that the repertoire of activities from starting university is experienced differently according to gender, family group income, sector of residence, and location of the study campus. This work offers an opportunity to problematize how the transition to university is conceived from the perspective of mobilities at a metropolitan scale.