In this study, colloidal liquid crystals are described by the Doi-Hess model and their response to an external transient flow (oscillatory shear) is investigated. The nonlinear partial differential equation governing the probability distribution of rods is solved numerically via an expansion in spherical harmonics and by solving a set of equivalent stochastic differential equations. These approaches provide microstructural insights into the behavior of systems with broken symmetries far from equilibrium. Thanks to this level of microstructural details, we here propose a new methodology to switch between the nematic and isotropic orientation state thanks to the transient nature of the externally imposed flow. Moreover, we show that the oscillatory shear flow is more efficient than the simple shear flow to capture the full microstructural dynamics that these systems can exhibit. Specifically, when a sinusoidal shear rate with large amplitude and low frequency (compared to the relaxation time of the system) is applied, a single oscillation period is sufficient to obtain a succession of microstructural dynamics (e.g., tumbling and wagging). These states would be obtained in a simple shear flow only by applying multiple shear rates to the system in multiple experiments. Hence, this methodology can provide a new strategy for experimental characterization.