You're thrilled when your college internship turns into a lab job at a local biotech company. However, things quickly go sour when a shattered test-tube gives you a rare genetic disorder that leaves you looking like Quasimodo.

It was the chance of a lifetime when you got to travel to Antarctica to study emperor penguins with your favorite college professor. You'll never forget the experience—mainly because you got frostbite and now walk with the aid of a bionic foot.

You set out with dreams of being the next Diane Fossey, but instead you teach at a mediocre university where the students barely listen to you. Ultimately, you have nothing to complain about, but you still kinda wish you'd never watched Gorillas in the Mist.

You're a well-respected professor with a ton of fieldwork and a ton of publications under your belt. If anybody wants to know something about snow leopards, they know where to come. Now, if only you hadn't missed every one of your daughter's birthdays growing up, you might get a Mother's Day card once in a while.

You radically changed the world's notions of reptiles by discovering three species that everybody thought were extinct. Now you've got your own hard-hitting animal show on HBO, and Johnny Depp is set to play you in a biopic. You just hope he doesn't make any weird acting choices like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.