But it's made in a Hollywood basement...

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, Part -1

And no, that's not technically a typo.

Here at Eton Crow, we all have Day Jobs. This is largely for the comedy potential of allowing people to advise us not to give them up when they've seen one of our films, but also because, well, cashy money.

That was the case for me, up until around seven months ago. My employer decided that, economically speaking, empty offices are cheaper to maintain than staffed ones, even if they're tied into a lease that lasts another two to three years and, because of the economic climate, no-one can afford to rent the empty office. This is, strictly speaking, true; they're now only paying for the lease rather than for the electricity, utilities and salary costs of employing everyone. Which is, yes, nice.

Now I'm lucky, because I have a parental unit who has always encouraged me to go to Film School. Of course, it felt a lot like it was in the 'You should totally do that! I don't expect you to actually do it, but you should!" Sort of a way, so there was actual shock when it came up as a realistic option, which is always fun for the first thirty seconds.

Fortunately, because my employer gave me approximately eight months notice that I was about to become a shiftless, unemployed bum, I was able to negotiate the... interesting... UCAS system in good time, so as the slowly soul-destroying wait ground down my will to live over those eight months, I could bear in mind that some universities wanted me to pay them lots of money in return for an education.

Mature students are different, basically. There are two flavours; the first didn't have the chance - for whatever reason - to go when they were younger, and the second flavour are the ones who want to go back to the academic lifestyle and, plus points, hang out with 'young people'.

But it's a fine line between recognising that a sector of your student population may have different issues to the majority and, alternatively, stigmatizing them. It's possible that stigmatizing is too strong a word, but mature students are treated differently; in your average university handbook, they have their own subsection in the section dealing with students with dyslexia or students with disabilities.

Dyslexia and Disabilities are genuine problems that deserve special attention regarding their needs.

Being old is not.

I'm a mature student of the second flavour. I've had one go-around on the degree ferris wheel, and I enjoyed approximately 25% of the experience, with the remaining 75% being made up of arrogant lecturers, resits, money worries, heartache and pixie-dust. But I've worked in a remarkably boring but vital field for the past six years, and now, when the opportunity presented itself to retrain in a field I genuinely have a passion for, I've taken it.

I'm not alone, either.

With the economy in the state it apparently is, lots of people - in the 'oh, fuck, I'm redundant' frame of mind - are going back to university in the increasingly vain hope that in three years' time there will be shining magical jobs in the land of ambrosia rather than now, where there aren't.

I'd like to be one of the first people to acknowledge how this could be unfair on 'young people'. I don't know if there are actually quotas for the amount of mature students a university can take on, but given that approximately 40,000 school leavers this year can't get a place, you have to wonder how this works out, with the older and technically wiser prospective students muscling in on a young person's game.

But, well, fuck it. What can I do? What are older people supposed to do instead of going back to the warm, pink fuzzy world of academia instead of the harsh reality of jobcentreplus?

And, trust me, it is a harsh reality.

So anyway; I decided to go and have a look around the campus that will be a home of sorts for at least the next three years this week.

I'd forgotten, it turns out, what a university in a coma looks like.

This will come as no surprise, but a university outside of term-time is pretty much empty. On my first go-around, I tended to stay near campus during the summer holidays rather than move home, so I saw what a campus in the summer holidays can look like. But my previous alma mater spent it's summers gently teasing the cash out of the pockets of summer school students and foreign students, and it had a healthy research community, so there were people around a lot of the time.

The campus of my new place, by contrast, was kind of a ghost town at the start of this week. Oh, sure, people were crewing the shops here and there and two or three students were wandering around looking purposeful. But the building for my subject was deserted to the point where I could wander round checking out the rooms, etc, and it was kind of eerie.

The main campus had slightly more people traffic, but the only truly living places were the cafeteria area - two or three tables occupied - and the book shop, which was gearing up for next week (week zero, hence the title above) with a fervent gleam in the eyes of the staff akin to a band of soldiers preparing for a siege movie.

Into all this, the mature student strides, outwardly confident - 'I've done this degree lark before!' - but inwardly shitting bricks in case anything's changed or the youth group of today refuse to accept them into the pack, instead ostracising them from the campfire at the centre and dooming them to a life of ill-accepted presence. Not that likely, but still; my only real worry comes from being perceived as The Spectre At The Feast, because of the way degrees are sold to young people; 'study for an extra three years and employers will beat down your door, wrestle with each other for the privilege of employing you and stuff your pockets with wads of cash until you can't carry anymore', which is, of course, so much bullshit. But then I'll be there, almost saying; 'Well, kids, if you pass your degree, you can get an entry level job that has no prospects of a raise, promotion or change, then, when you finally get fired, you can go back and do this all again.' Then again... Maybe my case is kind of unique. I would really hope so.

It's going to be interesting being a student again. I hope to keep this updated in the manner of 'Dispatches from the younger side'. We'll have to see...