YouTuber With World Class Education

Ruby is a rising YouTube star and a Kean University Student

Features > YouTuber With World Class Education
YouTuber With World Class Education
Mary Linen, Creative Media Specialist

On campus, she is known as Ruby, former Kean University basketball player, African Student Association member and Science, Technology and Mathematics (STEM) program student. However, if one were to look her up on YouTube, they would be transported into the world of Lavish Ruby, a self-started YouTube vlogger.

Ruby is a 19-year-old junior in the STEM program, majoring in bio-medicine. With this major, she hopes to go to medical school and become an orthopedic doctor. Once that is accomplished, she would like to be the main doctor for a sports team, whether it be for high school, college or professional.  

Ruby stated, "I'm hoping for a basketball team, but just a sports team in general. I'm not going to be picky regarding [any specific sports team]."

When asked about the inspiration for her career goals, Ruby stated, "I want it to be known that Ruby worked hard to become an orthopedic doctor, even though it is a male specialized field." 

According to the Penn Medicine website, less than five percent of the 20,000 active orthopedic surgeons are female. 

During her freshmen and sophomore years of college, one could have seen Ruby in her Kean basketball uniform, scoring points for the Cougars. In her 2015 to 2016 school year, Ruby set a new Kean University record with 117 blocks, leading the team with 215 rebounds, and scored over 100 points. When asked about basketball, Ruby finds it to be one of her favorite things to do.

Unfortunately, Ruby's basketball career was cut short due to an injury to her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which ultimately resulted in her retiring from Kean basketball. 

With basketball on hold, Ruby was able to devote more time to her YouTube vlogging. Ruby started her YouTube channel the second semester of her freshmen year of college. She received the inspiration to start from watching college life bloggers on YouTube when she was an incoming freshman. However, she saw that many of these bloggers would only show the party side of college, while Ruby was more interested in finding out the rigorous requirements of a STEM Program student. 


Ruby Asabor


Ruby stated, "I decided to make my [YouTube] channel, to show people a different aspect of college. As a bio-medicine major, I couldn't find anybody that was in my major that was trying to go a pre-med route."

She started making her vlogs with her iPhone 5s and natural light from her dorm window. She researched on YouTube different ways to film her videos. Once she started receiving compensation from Google AdSense, a service that pays users to have ads on their channels or websites, she decided to start investing more in her brand. 

"I bought my camera this summer. I [also] bought studio lights from Amazon and everything was super cheap," Ruby said.

When Ruby first started her channel, she wanted to keep her new hobby under-wraps. She explained that at this particular time, having a YouTube channel was not a "cool" thing to do.

"I didn't want my friends to judge me for putting myself on the internet," she explained.

Ruby realized that she could not keep the secret of Lavish Ruby hidden after she posted a video about moving into her dorm for her sophomore year of college. The video now has over 100 thousand views on YouTube and is now one of her most popular videos. After this, it was not uncommon for someone to recognize her as Lavish Ruby. Ruby now has over 20,000 subscribers on her channel.

Ruby is a college, lifestyle and beauty blogger, which gives her a platform to address a variety of different topics. These topics include: 

  • Organization Tips
  • Studying Life Hacks
  • Money Mondays (a series of ways to make money)
  • Hair videos
  • Clothing Hauls

Ruby mentioned that her series on Money Mondays has become very popular and the latest video has reached over 100,000 views. She stated that it is really important for her subscribers and those interested in making money to watch these videos. Ruby is also paid by sponsors to test their hair products and post the results on her blog. She does the same for many fashion companies. 

In addition to her repertoire of life hacks, Ruby also does a segment on business starting. She uses her own experiences from her accessory business to give advice to entrepreneurs. 

Not just anyone could juggle the life of a STEM program, full-time student and YouTube blogger's schedule. That is why Ruby finds it so important for her life to be on a schedule. She also believes this is why she has so many subscribers because they want to see how someone with so much on their plate can do so many things. 

Ruby gives all credit to her organization skills to her bullet journal, which holds all of her tasks, schedules, expenses, budgets and even inspirational quotes for herself. She has scheduled times for everything and anything that could come up in her life. From class, recording for YouTube, editing time and to replying to emails, Ruby writes it all down for every day and every month.

"If I lost this [bullet journal] everything would be over," she jokingly said. 

When asked about her YouTube fame, Ruby denied all claims of being famous. She knows the difference between having over 20 thousand subscribers and having over one million subscribers like Jenna Marbles. Ruby is more than willing to work toward a million subscribers by being consistent and believing in herself.

Ruby reaches an age range of 16 to 24-year-old women and men with her blog.

Whether students subscribe or watch her blog posts or not, she had this advice to give to everyone, “Set a goal for yourself. You’re only in college once. Take advantage of the opportunities that you have here. Set goals for yourself. Have the best life and work toward the best life that you can have.”

It is without a doubt that Ruby is making her Kean family proud one vlog post at a time.


about the author
Mary Linen - web

Mary Linen, Creative Media Specialist
linenm@kean.edu

MaryLanae Linen is a Creative Media Specialist at The Cougar's Byte and joined the staff during her spring 2017 semester. MaryLanae aspires to become a writer and director of film and television, as well as a documentary photographer. MaryLanae is in her senior year of college and hopes to attend graduate school in California or Washington, D.C.