Would you be willing to give some advice? All my life I’ve been told I’m smart. My mom has a PHD in Micro Biology. And I feel guilty for not wanting to go into science. I want to be a librarian and an author. I can’t help but feel like I’ll be disappointing people, especially my family by doing so, but I would be so much happier as a librarian. Even though my parents tell me it’s ok and not to worry I still feel guilty.

zoologicallyobsessed:

Don’t go into academia unless you want to. It’s tough work, requires lots of study and unpaid internships and free volunteering work and there’s not a ton of available jobs. If you do get a job in academia you could be taking it from someone that wants to be in academia. 

Even when you do start getting paid, there’s lots of research that scientists do for free just for the sake of interest or science. It’s a career path that you have to be passionate. 

There’s no reason to fill guilty and I can’t answer you as to how to not feel guilty because I’ve never felt guilty about going into science. In fact my dad heavily encouraged my love in science and is part of the reason why I went into zoology.

If it’s bothering you, you might find it beneficial to talk to a physiologist

Go be a smart librarian and author! If you feel like you need to do something to help people, organize events for kids at the library or something of the sort.

Being smart doesn’t mean you have to go and deliberately do hard, stereotypically smart-people things.