Sabina, who failed her job as a janitor in Sicily, becomes a professor at Harvard University.

REJECTED AS A JUDICIAN, SHE TEACHES AT HARVARD

For Sabina Berretta , now a successful neurologist, it was easier to reach the presidency of the prestigious Brain Tissue Resource Center at Harvard University in the United States than to get a job as a janitor at the University of Catania. Indeed, as soon as she graduated, discouraged by the impossibility of finding a job as a researcher—a scourge that increasingly drives more and more brains abroad—she attempted a state competitive exam in Sicily, but was resoundingly rejected. Shaken by this bitter disappointment, she decided to pursue another path: heading for other shores , where meritocracy is a sacred principle and administrations have decided not to jeopardize the future by cutting research . So, after receiving a grant from the CNR, she landed at MIT in Boston to specialize. In the meantime, she discovered a new world and decided to stay in the United States, where she was noticed by Harvard University, which greatly appreciated her research on the effects of schizophrenia on the brain.

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SABINA BERETTA

The difficult days for Sabina are now behind her, but after so many years, she still hasn't shaken the disappointment of those days. Immediately after graduation, she began volunteering in university laboratories, obviously unpaid. So, when she heard about the job opening for janitors at the University of Catania, she decided to take the shot: it was a salary, after all. But evidently, she wasn't up to the task and failed. A "holy" failure , as Sabina likes to call it, and today she's happy with how things turned out. Yet she still loves Catania and missed it greatly in her early years overseas. Her entire family lives in Sicily, but the professor is reluctant to return, at least "not to the current conditions where working in my field is difficult."

BRAIN DRAIN

At Harvard, in fact, she found all the rewards she sought. Upon arriving at the prestigious American university, she first assisted the top management of the neurology department, then became an independent researcher with her own budget, and finally was promoted to director of the Brain Tissue Resource Center, thanks in part to her expert knowledge of the brain archive . Incredible achievements for someone who wasn't "up to" a janitor job.

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