It is okay to fail, to give up when it is too hard and make success something else instead.
I’ve had to take two significant career breaks due to illness and learn to manage working with a disability. I don’t have the job I planned when I was 18 or even the one I planned at 25. Instead I’ve learnt to choose jobs and workplaces on their accessibility and their flexibility around my access needs. Thankfully this has led me to take jobs in areas I couldn’t have imagined 10 years ago.
I started off in number theory, but I got too ill and had to move back to Oxford for care reasons. Looking for flexible research jobs in the local area, I fell into medical statistics – a subject I had avoided at undergraduate – and discovered a deep passion for helping people understand statistical models and ideas. Since then, I’ve received a Graduate Diploma from the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), given talks at many universities and schools, taught dozens of students and run outreach activities at huge festivals.
One of my career highlights was running a stall of volunteers demonstrating Chladni plates at the Cheltenham Science Festival. I met hundreds of children and got a chance to tell them about Sophie Germain while getting them wet, making huge amounts of noise and shaking a giant slinky. I have a background in theatre and using my presentation skills, combined with my eccentric mathematical history knowledge, made it feel like the perfect day.
My current job is part-time and a mix of programming and statistical thinking. We look at the potential causes of cardiac diseases through clever analysis of genetic data. I really like the variety of the work, from the very precise clean planning of programs, to the messy artistic vision needed to understand and interpret actual data. My main goal is to be able to maintain the hours and pace of research I’ve managed for the past six months; my dream would be to be able to manage a consistent outreach and social schedule on top of that.
It’s still really hard to be a disabled academic, and it is likely I will need to change my goals again in the future. Sometimes I am angry that I can’t do things other people can, but a lot of the time I find satisfaction in what I have achieved. At my most ill, when I had to quit teaching and researching, I still managed to write, find funding and run a live action roleplay game as an outreach event for local kids. I’m really proud of finding that success at a point when it felt like I was failing at everything else.