Drawing on an academic literacies approach to understand writing as a social practice, this paper explores the experiences of how undergraduate students make sense of and engage with English academic writing conventions in relation to their writing purposes. We traced the writing process of 12 undergraduate students in Hong Kong over the course of two semesters and invited them to talk over their texts at three different stages of their writing process. Our findings reveal the existence of a language-content dichotomy in which language courses tend to value English standardisation and academic style conventions while subject courses value argumentation in the assignments. A majority of students accommodated writing conventions for the achievement of good grades. This form of purpose, however, limits student agency. Designing academic assignments without the acknowledgment of wider non-academic relevance to students' lives only reinforces a performance-oriented culture and alienates students from agentive learning. We suggest a pedagogical space for academic writing that can extend beyond academic conventions, allowing students to reflect on its social relevance. Creating a space for this exploration would foster an inclusive and empowering learning environment that facilitates student agency in academic language development and meaningful engagement with real-life issues.