The aim of this study was to describe student nurses' conceptions of internationalisation. Firstly this is done in terms of what they themselves conceive as important and related to internationalisation. Secondly, student nurses' conceptions of internationalisation are described in terms of how they experience internationalisation in their current nursing education programme, based on their teachers' interpretation of the curriculum objectives on internationalisation. This empirical study was conducted using a phenomenographic approach to analyse and interpret data from interviews with 24 student nurses. Analyses of the data reveal that student nurses' conceptions of internationalisation differ significantly, in terms of perspective, focus and relation to educational content. The fndings are described in three categories of conceptions of internationalisation. Some crucial aspects of internationalisation identifed by the students do not correspond to any actual educational content, that is, are not experienced by students as being part of the present educational content. Instead, the students' awareness of these aspects of internationalisation is related to their informal, unique and cultural background. From a pedagogical point of view the findings indicate a need to increase the attention given to internationalisation in nurses' education. The description of variations in students' awareness of aspects of internationalisation provides the students (and teachers) with the opportunity to compare various ways of conceptualising internationalisation. Knowledge of these variations can broaden and deepen understanding of internationalisation.