Paths of Convergence
My career choice wasn’t driven by a burning desire to study economics or any related subfield. Instead, it was a constellation of events that led me to where I am today. Reflecting on what I initially thought were the crucial moments has helped me recognize other, earlier pivotal points…
“What are you doing?” my father asked me.
“I am studying for the entrance exam at the university,” I replied.
That was an unusual question. He rarely asked about what I was doing. Perhaps seeing me with school books rather than a novel — most likely testing myself — must have caught his attention. I was in the third year of high school and it was summer break.
“You’re not staying here,” he said.
“No?” That statement caught me off guard. I was perplexed. Since around the start of high school, I wanted to leave my city and possibly my country. I don’t know where that desire came from, but somehow I felt restricted there.
“Where am I going?” I asked back.
His dream for me was Oxford or Cambridge, prestigious European universities we knew about. In reality, however, we had absolutely no information about the enrolment process in either of these schools, let alone the means for me to study there.
Knowing what I know now, I realize that few Albanians back then, and even now, could afford to send their kids to such schools.
The process of enrolling in Italian universities was common knowledge instead. Many Albanian students, including many of my former schoolmates, would go there every year. A whole system was in place with translators and notaries. The notary we consulted also mentioned available scholarships.
Back then, the most pressing question on my mind was, “What should I study?” I never questioned attending university. It felt like a natural progression in my life, both my parents were university graduates, but attending university was the only vision I had at that point. A blurred vision.
Throughout high school, I was involved in a UNICEF initiative that trained young adults in news reporting. We received some training from the BBC on conducting our reporting, filming, and creating cuts for the reportages. The national television would transmit the program, “Troç”, every Sunday afternoon. The program aimed to give a voice to the youth and state their truths without embellishment.
Almost every week, one of my creations would make it as a TV chronicle from my city. Back then I saw myself working as a journalist, specifically an investigative journalist. The thrill of uncovering and narrating untold truths held a certain charm for me.
My mother, fully aware of the consequences faced by truth-tellers in Albania, was terrified by the idea of me pursuing such a career. Her fear escalated every time, excited, I shared my ideas about future reporting from both Albania and abroad.
I also considered Mathematics and Architecture. I enjoyed math, particularly geometry. Architecture appeared to me as a nice blend of geometry and creativity.
What are you going to do with math?” my father, who was formally trained in math, inquired when I voiced my thoughts. He never interfered with my desires, but the environment we were living in made him unable to see the opportunities a formal training in math offered.
I also dismissed Architecture soon after. All my peers who were serious about it had already started taking technical design courses years prior, and the refrain, “If you’re not the best, don’t do it,” was ringing in my ears.
The refrain kept repeating, even though my mother and I even went to meet one of the renowned architects in my city. There, in her studio, she attempted to convince me that I could pursue this path despite the “late start”.
Once we decided that Italy would be the destination, I enrolled in a private Italian course, preparing me and several others for the language exam we needed to take.
I prepared so thoroughly for that exam, it’s likely one of the few tests I’ve ever taken where I knew I had nailed it as I left the examination room before time was up. (The imposter syndrome had not caught up with me yet; it started to appear much later in my life, during my Ph.D. studies.)
When the exam results were released, those who scored above a certain threshold could give their degree preference at the Italian consulate. I attended that meeting without any prior information. I remember that I was in a room and they handed me a sheet detailing all the available slots and quotas for each, requesting me to make a choice. The decision seemed irreversible back then.
I looked at those slots and each number carefully. There were no options for architecture or journalism. The fields offered were largely similar across different cities — Law, Economics, Engineering, and other social sciences… So, my selections were constrained by certain criteria I made on the spot. First, I settled on the city — Rome. It was the capital, I had learned so much about it from television, and we had family residing there. Next, I selected the field. Finally, I longed for a fresh start, which implied avoiding Albanian enclaves.
I opted for the slots with the scantest quotas available, presuming everyone would gravitate toward better-known universities such as La Sapienza (or Bologna) and places with more abundant quotas. My speculation proved correct. None of the people I knew aimed for that slot, with only 4 places available. There were no other Albanians in my cohort or the cohorts above me.
“What was your choice?” my father asked as soon as I met him after that meeting.
“Economics,” I said. The full name of the field was Economia delle Pubbliche Amministrazioni.
My father’s expression revealed his disappointment clearly. He never told me what he had hoped I would choose to study instead. Perhaps law. Maybe something else. However, while the concept of practicing law, as depicted in “Law and Order” or “Ally McBeal,” appealed to me, I was never drawn to the idea of studying law itself. What intrigued me was the detective aspect of it, something I would daydream about now and then.
In less than 20 minutes at that meeting at the consulate, a significant life decision was made. During that short time, I compromised with myself to pursue a subject that integrated some aspects of math and social studies. “Perhaps this way, I’ll be closer to everything that I like,” I thought.
Right after that meeting, I went online to look through the university’s page and learn more about the field I had chosen. Seeing the course list, I felt at ease.
Ultimately, I didn’t end up specializing in the Economics of Public Administration. In the third year, after the first two years that had the same coursework, I shifted my focus opting to specialize in European Economy.
The rationale behind my choice was that this specialization, in contrast to the others, offered more math/econometrics and one fewer law course. While all the other tracks required passing 5–6 law courses, European Economy — which laid the foundation for my MA studies in European Economy and Business Law — only four.
During my first two years of undergraduate studies, as I sat through two law courses — public and private law — it became evident that law wasn’t my forte. The combined challenges of language barriers and dyslexia led me to defer all the law exams to the very end, taking an extra year to prepare for four extensive law exams.
My preparation level resembled that of my law-focused peers in my dorm; I had to deep dive into each subject from head to toe. Given my difficulty with memorization, I had to get a thorough understanding of the subjects, a process that was time-consuming because with every concept I felt the need to dive deeper and deeper.
Surprisingly, by the end of that hard “year of law,” as I called it, I even discovered some elements of enjoyment that made me believe that everything can be interesting if properly taught. Indeed, the only law course in my master’s program was taught in a more engaging way, focusing on EU law, and was primarily case-oriented.
Only recently I realized that I have integrated all my past wishes into my current career path.
I’m teaching, just like I wanted to teach as a kid. Probably a desire to be more like my dad. It must have been after I saw him teaching in a classroom when I was 6 or 7. And whenever I’m giving a presentation, all practiced and rehearsed, I think about my mom’s job and what I learned from watching them get ready for a play.
Sometimes, when I’m working on my research projects, I feel like I’m a bit of a journalist, and a detective, interviewing people and looking into data.
As economists, we also need to know a bit about a lot of different things. In my research I’ve had to use knowledge from different fields such as history, geography, engineering, you name it.
I eventually went full circle and I am also doing research related to the economics of public administration. With my MA thesis advisor and other coauthors, I just submitted my master thesis to a good economics journal. Just 13 years after I initially started to work on it ;-)
In my downtime, I keep learning about all those other subjects I was curious about or have grown to like. Who knows, maybe one day they’ll find a place in my research, architecture included.
Economics wasn’t my calling; courage was. I was just a young mind navigating the crossroads of expectations and desires. It was the courage to pursue a path that felt authentic to me, against the external and internal noise, that led me there. I had a lot of support along the way, especially from my parents. My trajectory is a mix of choice and, predominantly, luck. The scholarship that allowed me to (mostly) support myself during my studies was also a product of fortunate timing. That last-minute piece of information led me to eventually forge a path I never thought I could.
