Hatfield Diaries is a YouTube series built around a simple question: what is it actually like to be a student right now? Not the highlight reel - the real version. The 2am conversations, the cramped shared kitchens, the roommate who leaves dishes in the sink, and somehow becomes one of your closest friends.
Every episode follows a different perspective. A second-year who moved cities and is still figuring out whether this was the right call. Someone juggling three part-time jobs and a full course load. A group of friends who found each other by accident and now can't imagine it any other way. Each story is its own world, but they all share the same undercurrent - the quiet weight of trying to build a future while still figuring out who you are.
Hatfield is a place with a particular kind of energy. It's loud, it's dense, it hums. This series tries to capture what it feels like to be young inside that hum - the beauty of it and the struggle of it, without looking away from either.
The Brief
The series came from a simple frustration: student life gets represented in two modes - the highlight reel or the burnout meme. Neither is honest. The brief was self-imposed. Go to Hatfield, find real students, and capture the version that lives between those two extremes. No scripts, no curated answers. Just the truth of what it means to be young and figuring it out in real time.
The Idea
Student life gets either romanticised or ignored. You either see the graduation photo or the burnout meme - rarely the messy middle where most of it actually happens. Hatfield Stories is an attempt to sit in that middle. To ask: why are you here? What are you chasing? What did you think this would look like, and how does it compare to what it actually is?
The series is built around conversations that feel more like late-night chats than interviews. No scripts, no set answers. Just students, being honest about the version of life they're currently living.
What Each Episode Explores
Inspiration
Visual and tonal references that shaped the look and feel of the series.
Behind the Scenes
Production stills and candid moments from filming.
"Nobody told me it was supposed to look like this. I just started talking."
- A Hatfield Diaries participant