(Photograph) - Breath of fresher air: From relationships to student loans, a new ITV2 series hopes to offer an in-depth account of student life. The University, which airs the first of ten episodes on Monday at 10.30pm, was produced over the nine months of the 1998-99 academic year. Two or three times a week, a film crew visited Southampton University to video five first-years. The series covers a campus meningitis outbreak, a one-day lecturers' strike and student union elections. The students involved, who were not paid, told the film crew when something of interest was taking place on campus. The producer of the series, Hayley Smith from Meridian Broadcasting, said: 'It was shot on a very small budget. We used small cameras and small crews.' Jenny Wells (pictured), a 20-year-old studying oceanography, said it was a very enjoyable experience and the camera came to be like a friend.