When mature students enter higher education they bring with them a wealth of knowledge and experience gained in their lives outside of education. A majority of higher education institutions in the UK and elsewhere around the world have now set up systems for recognizing and accrediting such learning. However the processes of assessing learning from experience tend to conform to other higher education assessment processes, originally devised for the assessment of learning gained through study in an educational context. This poses a dilemma for the students presenting their learning for assessment, those advising or guiding them and those assessing the learning. How can learning gained in a life/work setting be quantified and evaluated in academic terms? What happens in this process? This paper takes a discourse analysis approach to examine the process from both student and assessor perspectives, and proposes some strategies for bridging the gap in discourse between the outside world and academia.