When a U.S. investment bank of-

fered me a job in London, I jumped

at the opportunity. The trad-

ing floor was exhilarating, full of

supersharp high achievers. There

was a sense of having made it into

“the club.” But this came at a cost.

The demands were relentless—to

be “on” all the time, to constantly

prove myself and meet ever higher

sales targets, to fit in with the elite,

white, masculine environment. My

earnings freed me from the finan-

cial difficulties of previous genera-

tions, but as the years passed, I lost

a sense of who I was. I pushed my-

self so hard for so long—until my

body forced me to take time off.

To my surprise, my bedbound

month was one of the happiest times

of my life. I took the time to explore

why I felt so demotivated to return

to work, reading research papers on

motivational theories, psychology papers on career change,

sociologists’ conversations on identity. The more I read, the

more certain I became that I wanted to return to academic

research. Banking had given me financial stability, and I now

had the opportunity to choose my path anew.

I started a master’s in organizational behavior, and I felt

life come back to me. When I finished, I decided to go for

a Ph.D. Some enlightened mentors valued and supported

me as a nontraditional student, but returning to academia

as an “old” early-career researcher wasn’t easy. Some se-

nior academic colleagues discouraged me, discounting the

life and work experience I had already accumulated; they

did not realize that the resilience, discipline, and orga-

nizational skills I had learned on the trading floor were

massive assets in my academic pursuits. Others thought I

was too old and that my previous work tainted my ability

to conduct “objective” research. I was even asked whether

I was sure this was not a midlife diversion, a chance to

spend time at home with my kids

and study flexibly.

The thing that kept me going

was the joy of rediscovering myself.

Through my research, I started to

make sense of what I had experi-

enced in the blur of the previous

15 years in banking: toxic managers,

poor leadership decisions, clumsy

intercultural exchanges. I started

to appreciate the emotional labor

I undertook to hide hardship and

struggle, and I found my voice. I

could be critical of the environment

that had brought opportunities but

had also gagged me in conformity. I

could speak about inequalities, bias,

and discrimination. I could be who I

am, an Italian-Palestinian woman in-

terested in justice, equality, and how

people connect. After completing my

Ph.D., I decided to stay in academia

and secured a faculty position.

Academia is the right professional home for me, but I

know it is far from perfect and not right for everyone. Some

find it as crushing as I found banking. Individuals with non-

traditional career paths or backgrounds may be dismissed

by frustratingly close- minded academics. These biases

and many more can make academic careers unwelcoming

to many scholars, especially those from minority back-

grounds. And precarious, even unpaid, work excludes too

many, as it excluded me at the beginning.

But I have found, through my life experience and my re-

search, that we need not remain professionally trapped. It

may be easier said than done, but it is often possible and

preferable to find work that responds to our needs and of-

fers fulfilment. There is no need to wait, as I did, for your

body to crumble. j

Zahira Jaser is an assistant professor at the University of Sussex

Business School. Send your career story to [email protected].

“Through my research,

I started to make sense of what

I had experienced.”

Setting myself free

A

fter 15 years working in banking, my body had given up. I was bedridden with pneumonia, and

for the first time in years I had a reason to stop—and to reflect. I hadn’t set out to be a banker. As

an undergraduate studying politics and economics, I loved academic research, and I was told I

excelled at it. My undergraduate supervisor even asked me to stay and work as a researcher after

I graduated—but I wouldn’t be paid. I grew up in Italy as a child of a Palestinian uprooted father

and an Italian civil servant mother, and my family had spent much of my life wrestling with

citizenship challenges and aiming just to make ends meet. Unpaid work was not a viable option.

By Zahira Jaser

ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER

1018 27 MAY 2022 • VOL 376 ISSUE 6596 science.org SCIENCE

WORKING LIFE