This paper presents an investigation that compares the perceptions about acquiring and developing competences of old diploma holders’ to students of the new degrees in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), analyzing the changes that there may be regarding the work by competencies and the role that assessment might have had in such process. This experience is framed within the project “The education assessment impact on competencies development in the university. The first graduate perspectives” (EDU2012-32766), subsidized by the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Spain, and carried out in seven different universities (UB, UPC, UOC, UGR, UAB, URV, UIB) in the degrees of Teacher in Primary Education, Pharmacy, Computer Engineering, and Industrial Electronics Engineering.
Specifically, in this article we present a part of the research in which, based on a quantitative methodology using questionnaires, we obtain the learners perceptions and opinions about the competencies they believe they have developed in the university and relative to the role they think assessment have as a contributor to competences development. 
A study of the questionnaire provided to the students show that there is a clear difference in perception between what the students think is important and what they perceive the university provides: the teaching methods, assessment strategies, competences most worked on are not what they consider the ones that lead to better learning or to obtaining more valuable skills.