The digitalization of everyday life and work is progressing rapidly and entails transformative changes that also affect nursing education. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, both students and educators have been increasingly required to make use of digital opportunities for shaping formal as well as informal teaching and learning processes. With the growing significance of social media, possibilities for virtual networking and the exchange of knowledge and experience have gained particular relevance. Against this backdrop, Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP), understood as interest-based associations in which individuals use online platforms to share professional experiences and build relationships, offer professionals as well as nursing students alternative pathways to professional identity work. Within the framework of a qualitative study, attention was directed to the reasons nursing students turn to VCoP during their training, how they shape their membership within these communities, and what effects this has on their professional identity formation. The findings of the study indicate that the identity work of nursing students in VCoP unfolds on the levels of appropriation, self-narration, and discourse, with the experience of discrepancies emerging as a central point of departure for professional identity work.