[Alice begins outside our Peak Court accommodation]
Alice: Hi I'm Alice, I'm here at a University of Derby Hall of residence to find out what student nights are all about.
[Alice enters common room where a group of students are gathered around the pool table]
Alice: Hello, hi guys good evening! Thank you ever so much for letting me tag along with you tonight, I'm really looking forward to it. So I've come here today to find out about a typical student night in Derby what does that look like?
Jack: So usually it'll start with like something a nice little social gathering with your friends just to I don't know maybe even meet new people, go to the club, pub, or anything similar - but the most important thing is during the night just have the most fun that you can have.
Alice: So would you say there's any difference between a student night out and the sorts of night out you had at home before you came to uni?
Kirthiga: Yeah that's a lot of difference because I'm from Malaysia and here the thing that I like the most is everything is really near to the uni: like the cinema, the mall, the clubs, the restaurants. Typically we just gather with friends at the end of my street and then we walk together, sing some songs, take pictures, hang out, have a great time and then come back home safe.
Alice: So for anybody who you know doesn't necessarily want to do that sort of late night night clubbing sort of night out, what sorts of other things are there to do in Derby?
Inês: You can go bowling, you can go to the cinema, you can do some escape rooms, you can also go to the park have a picnic, in winter we've got Christmas markets going on so you can go there just spend a little bit of time there maybe have a hot chocolate. So there's quite a few big range of things that you can do.
Alice: It's been really great talking to you thank you very much I'm going to head off now but I will see you down there later, bye!
[Alice walking along Friar Gate in Derby City Centre with Owen, from our Union of Students]
Alice: So Owen, how safe is Derby as a city for students?
Owen: Derby as a whole is actually quite a safe City because we're fortunate enough to be able to work with the city council and that's with the Union and the University to help with initiatives such as the Purple Flag which basically gears towards a safer nighttime economy and we're able to sort of pitch into that fund and actually cater it a bit more to the students. But yeah as a whole that working relationship we're able to have those partnerships and things like such as Street Pastors are able to sort of give that service to students on a night out.
Alice: So which organisations do you work with in the city to make student nights safe?
Owen: So we're fortunate enough to work with Stonegate which have many different venues in the city center one of them being Popworld and the Friary and fortunately with Popwold we're able to make a student-specific night out and that basically means that we're able to keep tabs on students and make sure they're being safe on a night out.
Alice: Right, that's great Owen, thank you very much - I think this is me, I'm going to go back and meet the students now for the rest of the night but it's been lovely talking to you thank you very much for joining me!
Alice: Likewise. See you later.
[Alice enters The Mixing House bar and rejoins the students at their table]
Alice: Hi guys! Nice to see you again.
[Montage of the students chatting]
Alice: Do you feel safe in Derby when you're on a night out?
Inês: Yeah I do feel pretty safe in Derby in a night out, I think Derby is a pretty safe place in general.
Alice: Do you find it hard having a social life but also keeping on top of your studies?
Kayleigh: Personally I don't, I tend to make sure that I don't go out the night before a lecture, I try to keep my notes updated before I go out because I think it's a responsible thing to do.
Alice: When you first arrived at University did you find it easy to make friends?
Jack: Personally I found it really easy to make friends. On my first day here, because I live in student accommodation I was in the lobby and two people came up to me and they asked
if I wanted to go out and from there we just became mates and kept going out.
Alice: So when you're actually inside the venues, how safe do you feel in there?
Kirthiga: We feel pretty safe all the time because there's always security around us all the time so in case anything at all, we can just look over to them and they're always there for us.
[We see Alice outside Popworld - a colourful entrance to a Derby City Centre nightclub]
Alice: We've made it to our final destination for the evening: we're here at Popworld, it's student night, and I'm going to go in there now and check it out.
[Music montage as we see Alice and the students inside for student night - inflatables, smoke machine, DJ decks, drinks being poured, and dancing!
Alice intonates her goodbyes to the student group and leaves the club]
Alice: I think that's me for tonight, I'm going to get a taxi home now, I've left those guys to it in there. It's been a really brilliant night and it's been so good to find out what a student night in Derby is all about.
[University of Derby logo]