I have been thinking pretty hard whether to write what is following below. After reading several threads I came to the conclusion that I should indeed do so.

What would you do if you knew what your vocation was but in pursuing this career you would be letting down your family big time?

A very good friend of mine is a talented physicist. She is acing every exam and is loved by all her professors. Her dream is to become a professor or at least a good researcher herself. She is just completing her masters degree and thus still has to do her PhD followed up by several post-doc positions in order to achieve her goal.

Unfortunately her family has never been rich and to aggravate things even more her father had an accident and is now disabled. Their house is still not paid for and the bank has already expressed that they will be thrown out if they are not able to pay the agreed upon installments. Her father has spent 25 years of his life building and paying for this house.

You might begin to see where this is going already. She could drop out of the university in order to work for a consulting enterprise. The salary would be high enough to solve the financial problems besetting the family. Still this would certainly kill any chance of her ever achieving or coming close to her dream. I have talked and listened to her at length but I could not come up with any solution or viable alternative. Sometimes life is really a bitch and so often it hits those who deserve better and have the abilities to achieve great things.

Her siblings and parents would  manage if she were to pursue a career in academics. But it would still mean losing their home and moving into a cheap rented apartment. What is more she knows that there is no guarantee that she will achieve what she wants. The academic world is fraught with talented people who were eventually forced to go into the free economy.