Camilla's story

This podcast is about researchers and their journey through the challenges of today's academia. In this episode, we meet Camilla, a multidsciplinary globetrotter with a determination to become a university professor. Someone who has always seen higher education as the way out of her past, a way to independence. Blessed with the capacity for great insight, Camilla is someone who really knows what works for her as an academic - and what doesn't.

Camilla's story is interesting, because she is someone with an acute awareness of her own weaknesses and struggles, as well as of her strengths and potential. She is critical of academia today, but the insightful person she is, she also knows what she brings to the table. Camilla admits having suffered from mental health issues almost all of her life, and she was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Her story reminds us that while academia should not be such a toxic environment as to BREAK healthy people that walk into it, it should aactually be so healthy to accommodate people with a history of (not extreme) mental health issues. In a way, after all, who doesn't have, or who hasn't had, a rough time where they didn't quite have it all together? And this is a good time to remember that our focus should only be on mental health (as in absence of pathologies) but on well-being, which is a condition where people thrive - not survive, not get by, not manage to meet a deadline without a full blown meltdown - but THRIVE.
I am Federica Bressan, host and producer of this podcast. Join me on this journey.