Problem: the study refers to the view and perception of the professional practice of the teacher in the field of higher education, which are derived from the particularities of the environment and the role that students have in the formative relationship, since through social representations the phenomena of everyday realities can be described, classified and explained. Objective: to identify and analyze the social representations of university students on the exercise of the teacher's work. Methodology: the study is framed in the mixed methodology, with an intentional sample of students from the last two levels of the Bachelor of Physical Education and Sports of the San Buenaventura University, Medellin section (Colombia). To obtain the information, a survey was designed and applied, and the natural semantic networks technique was used for the analysis, which allows giving values to the answers obtained, classifying concepts of a hegemonic nature and concepts of a peripheral order, which also account for aspects less mentioned in relation to the teacher, but which must be taken into account. Results: the hegemonic concepts expressed by the students were: Trainer, Guide, Transformer, Responsible, Leader, Commitment, Human, Teach, Respectful and Knowledge. Conclusion: from the perception of the students, it was established that being a teacher is based on the human, on the value of the ethical, knowledge being essential for his role as a teaching agent for future graduates, that is, a close teacher is of great importance in the teaching process, as long as he has knowledge about what he teaches.