An OnlyFans creator explains why she quit her bioengineering doctorate to focus on content

• Zara Dar left her doctorate in bioengineering to become a full-time creator, including on OnlyFans.
• She switched to content creation after becoming frustrated with academia.
• Her content combines STEM education with more adult OnlyFans, where she's earned more than $1 million.

A bioengineer who once thought she'd be a professor decided to abandon her doctorate program and become a full-time creator, including making content on OnlyFans.

The 24-year-old from Texas, who uses the pseudonym Zara Dar on social media, knew this was a gamble, but she couldn't see herself following in her professor's footsteps.

Dar sent Business Insider her OnlyFans dashboard, which shows her net income since she started on the site in January 2022 was $1.4 million, putting her among the top 0.1% of creators. In an interview with BI, she said the sum was "something I never imagined possible."

She earned $50,000 in her first three months on OnlyFans. She now posts more regularly. Her earnings for December 2024 were $240,000.

After starting OnlyFans, Dar began posting lectures to YouTube and Pornhub in 2023, focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Her YouTube and Pornhub accounts both link to her OnlyFans page and funnel users there.

On OnlyFans, in addition to posting STEM content, she posts erotic photoshoots and exchanges messages with fans, a major source of revenue for creators on the platform. According to her dashboard, Dar's total income from messaging is $661,000.

Dar said doing both STEM lectures on YouTube and PornHub alongside adult content on OnlyFans "makes my approach not only unique but also more relevant to who I am."

She chose OnlyFans after becoming frustrated with academia

Dar spent two years in grad school at a top-tier university, achieving a master's degree and working toward a doctorate in biomedical engineering. Dar doesn't share where she studied publicly for privacy reasons. BI has verified her degree and confirmed the institution.

Dar told BI she left her doctorate program at the end of 2024 after realizing "it wasn't the right fit."

Her doctorate research was in computational biology and drug discovery, where she explored how computational models can replace drug experiments on animals.

But her research was less hands-on than she thought. Her professors seemed to spend more time trying to secure funding than working in the lab, she said.

"I think, as a professor, I would feel disconnected from the actual work associated with my name," Dar said.

Dar said she received the stipend as a doctorate student was "barely enough to cover basic living expenses," which was stressful. She started to think about other ways to earn a living.

Her STEM niche led to OnlyFans promoting her work

Dar found that her STEM niche set her apart on OnlyFans, which promoted her videos on its main page.

Her YouTube channel recently reached 150,000 subscribers. Her videos include explanations of neural networks, machine learning concepts, and how she developed her own OnlyFans notification robot.

"This made me realize I can have an actual career by continuing to share educational and artistic content on OnlyFans," Dar said.

Dar has had setbacks. Her Instagram, where she discussed topics such as the Leidenfrost effect and Schrödinger's cat, was banned for sexual content because she was showing cleavage, which put a dent in her earnings. The account has since been reinstated.

She has focused more on her social media presence since quitting her studies.

Her YouTube video about dropping out of her doctorate made Zar $40,000 in just 24 hours — more than her annual stipend as a graduate student, she told BI.

Dar said several management companies have approached her to offer their services to help her run her page, but she has declined them so far.

Dar said OnlyFans isn't for everyone

For many, OnlyFans doesn't provide a steady income. The total paid out to creators in 2023 equalled nearly $1,300 per creator, according to an analysis by Variety. Dar said she has to continually post videos and photos and interact with fans to stay popular. The main funnel to Dar's OnlyFans is her STEM content on YouTube and Pornhub, which is hard work but something she enjoys.

She also worries about her privacy. "Being so visible on the internet has its downsides," she said.

She said many people assumed she had abandoned STEM by doing OnlyFans.

"The truth is quite the opposite. OnlyFans has given me the freedom to learn, research, and share whatever I'm passionate about," Dar said.

Despite how much she makes, Dar said she is careful with her money, investing it, trying to live frugally, and avoiding luxury purchases.

Dar advised creators considering OnlyFans to find a niche and to "never do anything you're uncomfortable with."

"My experience on OnlyFans proves that you don't need to create porn to earn a substantial income," she said.

Dar said there is a diverse range of content on OnlyFans, and she aims to be unique with her erotic content by posting only artistic photoshoots that she feels reflect who she is.

"One of my photoshoots explores the two paths I face in life: continuing to work for others or working independently," she said.

"In that set, I wrote a poem inspired by Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' and wore a hard hat while being topless to symbolize the choices in front of me."

Dar told BI that, besides her content creation, she would like to offer online STEM courses or start a social-media consultancy. She is also pursuing another master's degree in computer science online.

"Working full-time online enables me to continue my education at my own pace and research what I enjoy," she said.