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The transition from clinical to classroom teaching is widely recognized as being complex for novice nurse educators. Existing studies on the transition of nurse clinicians into academia have not sufficiently appreciated the extent to which novice nurse educators are expected to span, contrasting environments for practice (whether the classroom or the clinical setting), different sets of demands from students and patients, and the relevance of different roles and ways of managing. This study examined the novice nurse educators' transitional experiences during their first year in academia and identified support requirements needed. Benner's novice to expert model was used alongside role transition theory as a means to explore these educator's experiences. Underpinned by a phenomenological hermeneutic philosophy, an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) design was used. A purposeful sampling approach of nine novice nurse educators at one western university was used to conduct in-depth interviews, exploring the details of expert nurse clinicians transitioning into the novice nurse educator role during their first year of teaching. Three main themes were identified: a transitional gap, role strain, and the importance of fostering a sense of belonging. Findings indicated that both clinical and classroom settings present unique challenges and complex environments, in which the learning takes place, for both the educators and students. Findings also indicated that there are influencing contextual factors that impact the role transition process which are different from Duffy's model and Schoening NET model. The contextual factors such as recognizing and acknowledging the time and the environmental impact on early stages of transition can mitigate the chaos, address discouragement and build on the concept of making a positive impact on students that novice nurse educators (NNE) are encountering. To bridge the transitional gap, this study discovered that the early transitional experience could be improved by clarifying the role and its responsibilities, aligning clinical expertise and teaching assignments, as well as by providing orientation and guidance on navigating academia. The ideas of socialization and identity formation are important to consider during the transitional phase for NNEs. Ensuring formal orientation and mentorship programmes could foster a smoother transition and help NNEs to learn to span different demands of the two settings which they expected to function from. Both education and nursing-focused literature need to acknowledge that the Expert Nurse Clinician's (ENC) skills and abilities are not simply transferable into NNE. Implicit skills need to be developed and considered. There is limited research which exists on the first-year of a novice nurse educators' experiences from a Canadian context and the impact that these experiences have on their transitional progression. Further research is necessary to determine if the early support interventions of fostering a sense of belonging, including providing time for orientation and capacity building prior to teaching in the clinical and classroom setting are impactful not only in the nursing field but also in the other health allied fields.