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The Cambridge Student

The Cambridge Student is a free weekly newspaper distributed to the staff and students of the University of Cambridge. It is written and edited entirely by a team of volunteers.

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Featured Writers

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Juliette Bretan

Juliette Bretan is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Cambridge.In her freelance work, she has written regularly for Notes from Poland and Culture.pl, and been published in …

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Tom Higgins Toon

Oxford University student, journalist, and copywriter.

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Charissa Cheong

Finalist at the University of Cambridge Current Editor-in-Chief at The Cambridge Tab

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Emma Turner

Travel, mental health, feminism, climate, politics. EN / FR / ES / PT.

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Rhian Williams

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Alex Jacob

English and Business Graduate. Bylines in The Times, Varsity Newspaper, and The Cambridge Student.

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Latest Articles

We Must Protect our Libraries: They are Symbols of Equality and Freedom

I still remember the first time I borrowed from my local public library. It was a summer during primary school, the kind of summer which never seems to end; when the (vaguely) sunny days melt one into another but September never feels any closer. A trip into our nearest town …
By Emma Turner
• The Cambridge Student

The Rwandan Genocide, Brandon Stanton, and why ‘Humans of New York’ is one of the most important pages on social media right now

‘Do you ever read something and have a very clear vision that there’s so much of life about which you know nothing? Are you ever just smacked in the face with your own ignorance and naivete?’ It’s 8:20pm on April 6, 1994. An aeroplane carrying the President of Rwanda is …
By Alex Jacob
• The Cambridge Student

A celebration of voices: Holocaust survivor, Eva Clarke, visits John's

Dressed in a well-fitted monochrome blazer and skirt, with shards of red nails and lips, and an immaculate billow of cotton white hair, you would be forgiven for thinking Eva Clarke is your typical stylish grandmother. And she is – though she was also born on 29th April 1945 in …
By Juliette Bretan
• The Cambridge Student

Respect, rote learning and ragout rôti: the reality of French education

Over the course of the past few months, I have made the most of being potentially one of the last British students eligible for Erasmus funding to study abroad in Paris. In the Ecole Normale Supérieure, no less, France's grandiloquently named answer to Oxbridge. Over the years, this venerable establishment …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Dustin Lance Black on the potency of authentic storytelling

These words continue to resonate long after the interview has come to and end. Dustin Lance Black, Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director, is confident that we’re living in a time where storytelling is one of the most potent skills in changing culture. Stories pull at our heartstrings, and if you …
By Molly Moss
• The Cambridge Student

Column: Paperwork and prolixity, or why France just loves its bureaucracy

In France, it is fair to say that civil servants enjoy a greater level of prestige than is generally afforded to their British counterparts. Over here, grey suits and faceless cinder-block buildings tend to dominate public imagination, with pen-pushing in general seldom deemed a glamorous occupation. Yet as I open …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Caitlyn Jenner on politics, coming out and the Kardashians

‘When did you know you were a girl?’ Silence fell as Caitlyn Jenner posed this question to the audience. ‘That’s what a trans person goes through 24 hours a day, 365 days a year’, she adds. ‘That’s what goes through their heads, trying to understand who they are.’ I listen …
By Molly Moss
• The Cambridge Student

French supermarkets: a microcosm of national stereotypes

What links blue tac, bacon and baked beans, aside from a speculative attempt at alliteration on the part of the writer? Traipse around a French supermarket and you may just hit upon the answer. Or not, since it is their very absence that forms the basis for this particularly petulant …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Clare Summerskill: Unearthing the voices of LGBT asylum seekers in Rights of Passage

Cambridge theatre is staging Rights of Passage from the 17th October in Corpus Playroom, a play uncovering the voices of LGBT asylum seekers with a script based solely on interviews. I listen to the author Clare Summerskill, also LGBT activist, comedian and PhD student researching the role of the contributor …
By Molly Moss
• The Cambridge Student

How's that?! Cambridge women record first Varsity win at Fenner's

Cambridge eased to victory in under twelve overs after a ruthless bowling display saw Oxford reduced to just 74 runs. Losing the toss on a flat track in perfect batting conditions, the chances of Cambridge picking up their first win since the competition began in 2011 certainly appeared slim.
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Why Scottish football needs Celtic to stay

Here's one for the pub-quizzers amongst you: amongst the main football leagues in Europe, which country has the highest attendance rates? England, the home of football? Or perhaps Spain, where you're hard-pressed to find a taxi driver who doesn't have something to say about his local equipo? Neither, in fact. …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Cambridge whitewashed in 143rd Athletics Varsity at Wilberforce Road

Despite some very tight scores and excellent performances across the board, Cambridge found themselves on the receiving end of a 4-0 loss to their Oxford counterparts. It was the first time in over 10 years that none of the four teams that make up the general classification failed to record …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

"It's like you're involved in something bigger — a team spirit I haven't experienced before"

With his powerful arms, strong jaw and dislocated shoulder, Elliot Teboth has much in common with the conventional boxer. However, his nickname is anything but conventional. Departing from the long-held tradition of intimidating one's opponent by choosing a fearsome moniker like 'Hurricane' or 'Bonecrusher', Teboth opts for the slightly more …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

"What are they protesting about. Me? A mum of three kids?”: Katie Hopkins on standing by her views

Meeting Katie Hopkins, the self-proclaimed “biggest bitch in Britain”, I sit down expecting a dog with a bite. What I get instead is an overly-energetic puppy. I can't count the number of times she showers the room with 'darlings' and smiles. Does she really believe the hot air that comes …
By Molly Moss
• The Cambridge Student

Selwyn edge out Hughes Hall in thrilling rugby Plate final

A last-gasp conversion from fly-half Craig Peter Winfield was enough to secure the silverware for Selwyn, running out 30-28 victors in a highly entertaining encounter at Barton Road. Full-back Jack Fernon thought he had won it for Hughes Hall, running through under the posts to take the score to 28-27 …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Cambridge take cycling Varsity, securing one-two finish in BUCS time trial

John Mulvey and BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) 10-mile champion Seb Dickson took gold and silver respectively as Cambridge riders swept the field away at last Saturday's race, held in the Cambridgeshire countryside. However, it could have been an entirely different story for Mulvey, who had to forgo the …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

That's not cricket: Why elite-level sports need to embrace innovation

For a second year in a row, Italy did not muster a single point from any of their Six Nations fixtures. However, they could not have come much closer than with their performance against England, during which they wreaked havoc for the first 70 minutes by exploiting a particular loophole …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student

Violinist and conductor Stephanie Childress talks to TCS

You don’t forget a Stephanie Childress performance. On stage she is calm and collected, and hours of technical practice translate into effortlessness. I meet her in the slightly cramped downstairs Costa in Cambridge, and I’m shocked she seems nervous. ‘I better think about what I’m saying’, she tells me. Childress …
By Molly Moss
• The Cambridge Student

“Sin-bins”: Should football follow rugby’s example?

Earlier this month, it was revealed that rugby style “sinbins” could come into the eleven-a-side game as soon as 3 March, when IFAB, the FA’s law-making body, next hold their AGM at Wembley. Presented as a measure looking to encourage fair play, there are doubts as to the effectiveness of …
By Tom Higgins Toon
• The Cambridge Student