A 37-year-old man becomes the youngest professor at Cambridge University despite having reading difficulties.
Despite having reading difficulties, a young man named Jason Arday was elevated to the position of professor at Cambridge University at the tender age of 37.
Jason Arday is a well-known American sociologist who was born in Clapham, south-west London. At age three, he received a diagnosis of autistic spectrum condition and global development delay.
His motor abilities were delayed as a young child as a result of this diagnosis. He was unable to read or write until he was eighteen, and he was unable to speak until he was eleven.
In a BBC interview, Jason stated that he spent a large portion of his childhood working with speech and language therapists. He was one of his parents’ four children and had always wanted to play professional snooker or football.
Jason went on to say that if he weren’t going to be a sports celebrity, he would like to save the world since he has always been profoundly affected by other people’s suffering and feels a tremendous urge to take action.
He recalls thinking, “I want to save the world if I don’t succeed as a professional football player or snooker player.”
Jason claimed that despite his illness, he was motivated to help improve the world as a child after seeing footage of Nelson Mandela’s release from jail and South Africa’s historic Rugby World Cup victory in 1995.
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He claimed that his mother was instrumental in helping him build his abilities and self-confidence through music therapy. In an attempt to improve his understanding of English, his mother exposed him to a variety of musical styles.
Jason added that his exposure to a variety of musical genres drew him in and sparked a lifelong fascination with popular culture, which has informed some of his study.
He claimed that in his late teens, he finally began to read and write with the assistance of Sandro Sandri, his mentor and college instructor. Jason continued his education at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, where he graduated with a degree in Education Studies and Physical Education.
Jason prepared to teach physical education after receiving his bachelor’s degree, but by the time he was 22, he had decided he wanted to pursue a career in academia. He claimed that because he had no one to advise him on how to proceed, establishing a career in academia was difficult.
In retrospect, that was the first time I truly had faith in myself. Many academics claim to have fallen into this field by accident, but I was focused and determined right away, knowing that this would be my mission,” he stated.
Nevertheless, he persisted by working as a university lecturer in physical education during the day and researching sociology and writing scholarly papers at night. He persisted despite the numerous rejections of his academic works.
“I had no idea what I was doing when I first started writing academic articles. Nobody ever taught me how to write, and everything I submitted was brutally rejected. I also didn’t have a mentor. Jason told the BBC, “I saw the peer review process as a learning experience and, ironically, started to enjoy it despite the fact that it was so cruel that it was almost funny.”
Jason refused to let his illness define who he was. In 2015, he became a sociologist after earning two master’s degrees and a doctorate in educational studies.
After graduating with a degree in sociology, Jason’s first paper was published three years later. He then proceeded to Roehampton University as a senior lecturer before joining Durham University as an associate professor of sociology.
Jason relocated to the School of Education at the University of Glasgow in 2021 and began serving as a professor of educational sociology there. With the aim of ensuring that ethnic minorities are not underrepresented in higher education, he is currently a professor at Cambridge.
