I spent some serious time as teenager training myself out of my southern accent for this reason. You could have a PHD in Astrophysics, but if you speak with a s

I spent some serious time as teenager training myself out of my southern accent for this reason. You could have a PHD in Astrophysics, but if you speak with a southern accent people will assume you're an idiot. The only downside, is that I have a slight speech impediment, but it's mild enough that most people don't notice. And for some reason I still (25 years later) tend to pronounce hill as "heel".