Room for manoeuvres

'Ah-tennnn-shun!" barks the man with the swagger stick. It is 1900 hours on a rainy Tuesday in central London and 100 students, dressed in combats, berets and neatly polished boots, are formed in rank and file. This is not a get-together of militant anti-fees protesters preparing to march on Whitehall, but the weekly meeting of the London University Officer Training Corps (OTC).

OTC members are the odd ones out in the student mainstream: they are the ones ironing their kit in the hallway and vanishing at the weekend to drive tanks before returning tired, camouflaged and strangely hangover-free on Sunday afternoon.

There are 19 OTC contingents: London is the largest with about 400 students drawn from 52 colleges and universities. Every Tuesday they meet in their newly refurbished HQ near Russell Square for two hours of drill and training before hitting the bar, and every other weekend they head out to an Army barracks to learn fieldcraft, weapon handling, ambush techniques and the like.

"It has become the focus of my social life," says Jon Teague, 23, a politics undergraduate from Brunel University, west London, who has been in the OTC for three years.

Like Teague, 20-year-old Louise Moore Dutton is planning to join the Army after she finishes her degree in Ancient and Modern History at Royal Holloway. "I love the OTC," she says. "I just knew that I didn't want to be stuck in an office. I want to be out there doing something exciting and the OTC has given me some experience."

But the OTC is not just for the "army barmy". Only a tiny proportion each year will join up and - despite the uniforms, the drill, the weapons training and those polished boots - it is far from the square-bashing, gung-ho stereotype. "Training in America last summer was probably the best thing I've done," says Moore Dutton.

"We trained with the American OTC equivalent for three weeks then hiked through the Cascade Mountains near Seattle, ending up in Vancouver for a bit of R&R." In addition to her US jaunt she has also been skiing, mountain walking and scuba diving. And yes, she has driven a tank, too.

Teague, who spent last summer recruiting for the OTC, is keen to emphasise this point. "Once they've done their few weeks of basic training in the first year, there are people here who won't have done anything else overtly army-related in their subsequent two years. They will just pick and choose what they want to do - there are plenty of fun weekends."

Marcelle Wright, a 24-year-old marketing and advertising undergraduate at the London College of Printing, signed up at her freshers' fair two years ago and admits she has half an eye on her CV. "I've enjoyed what I've done here - you learn transferable skills that you can use in industry. You learn how to give a lecturette - basically a five-minute presentation - and there are things like social skills and self-confidence that are really valuable."

To join the OTC you need to be a British citizen aged 18-30 in full-time university education and to pass a basic medical. There is also a selection weekend, which is just a formality. The Army will even pay you to give up your precious time.

The current rates range from £28 to £40 per day depending on your Military Training Qualifications (which you take during your first and second years and which are equivalent to a City and Guilds Leadership Diploma) plus expenses with an additional bonus or "bounty" between £100 and £155. Unlike the Territorial Army, OTC members will never be called up to fight.

What the OTC really amounts to, then, is a glorified student society with a very large budget that offers, for those who want it, a taste of army life. "We cater for all the major sports - there's a rugby team, a hockey team and a netball team and I'm in the process of setting up a football team," says Teague. "And in terms of what you get towards a future career there is ample opportunity to dress up your CV. It's the best student club anywhere."

• For more information, call 08457 300111 or see the UOTC website.