The role of a professional and creative writing degree is to provide resources, structured workshops, professional interactions--and the potential for creative risk. Opportunities for risk, within the structured environment of the university, challenge the individual's perspectives and judgements, as well as their ability to analyse and to reflect on their writing and creative practices. From this starting point the authors, both writing industry practitioners and academics, have developed experiential projects with the aim of transforming their teaching practice from a model of narrative hierarchies of knowledge to learning through performativity, social connectedness and immersive workplace learning. As the case studies illustrate, this transitional approach has enabled our millennial learners more confidently to take risks, accept challenges and transform their understanding of their own knowledge, skills and identities.