Objective. This study was undertaken to describe the perception of the meaning of life among university students in Bogota, this being defined by Martinez as affective-cognitive perception of values that invite the person to act in one way or another to specific situations or life in general, giving coherence and personal identity. The objective was to characterize the perception of the meaning of life according to the academic area, gender and age of the participants. Method. The convenience sample consisted of 695 college students, of whom 68.9% were women (479) and 31.1% were men (216), with mean age of 22.17 years. Results. By