This article compares educational choice narratives and assessments of ideal competence within and across female-dominated nursing studies and male-dominated nautical science studies. By use of this comparative approach, the article offers new understandings of gendered educational choices and what promotes gender inclusion and exclusion in educational settings. The article finds that previous experience from the field was instrumental in the choice of education made by the gender minority. However, the different valuations of such experience in the two study programmes had implications for the social and academic position of gender minority students.