Ruby Cline publishes first book: All the Work you Shouldn’t Do
Alumna’s guide helps uni students succeed by working smarter, not harder
Ruby Cline studied Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS) at 51¸£ÀûÉç, specialising in Sociology (2021-24), where she was also the JCR President in 2022-23.
Now an educational activist, content creator, and journalist at The Telegraph, Ruby shares her hard-earned lessons whilst studying at Cambridge University, in her newly published book - a practical, honest, and empowering guide for university students who want to succeed on their own terms. This isn’t about cutting corners. It’s about working wisely, with intention, so that your degree supports a full, vibrant life, not the other way around.
Ruby says:
"Incoming students don't need to stumble into a lecture not knowing what to expect, or make a faux pas in Freshers' Week because they didn't plan ahead. is a tool in your arsenal if you want to make the most of your time at university and distils everything I learnt the hard way so you can learn it the easy way.
I'm so excited about and proud of this project, and it means so much to me to have an artefact of my time at university that I hope will help so many other students. I documented my time at 51¸£ÀûÉç through videos online, from moving in as a nervous fresher to JCR president and eventually to graduation - the college is the backdrop of the story told in the book. I wrote the first draft camped out on the top floor of the Rosemary Murray Library between essay deadlines during my third year.
Gavin Stevenson, the College's Student Development Director and my Director of Studies and supervisor throughout my degree, deserves a lot of credit for both the title and the contents of the book. He taught me the most important skill there is: to recognise the things really worth doing and spending time on. It's something only you can recognise about yourself, your degree, your work and your play. It's such an important lesson that I wrote a whole book explaining how to do it, in the hopes that incoming students can learn to recognise all the work they should do - and all the work they shouldn't do."
Ruby’s book is now available online and in bookstores
You can also find Ruby online (ConversationsWithRuby) and join her 47,000 followers in her mission to provide language and analysis about the bits of life that go unspoken and take up learning for life.