This thesis presents the results of a qualitative research study with six students from the University of Zadar using semi-structured interviews which explored how students understand excellence, what is their motivation to be excellent students, what they consider to be prerequisites and barriers to excellence, and what they think of the dominant neoliberal discourse of excellence. This thesis also provides insights into the impact of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic on the excellence of the interviewed students. The results of the research show that the interviewed students perceive excellence in a more complex manner than the dominant discourse of excellence, and that they understand excellence as influenced not only by personal characteristics (motivation, organization, effort, perseverance, self-control), but also social (support of colleagues, friends and family, economic status, accommodation) and institutional characteristics (support and understanding of professors, availability of literature) that can both facilitate and complicate study and excellence itself. The paper affirms Bourdieu’s understanding of educational success as a result of numerous circumstances, as opposed to explanations that reduce success to factors such as ability or motivation.