Scholar

The qualifications to be a successful scholar are an open mind and the ability to think critically. The ability to read and write is presumed to be a pre-requisite as well. The final qualification for success is a passion for learning more about something, whether it is one particular thing or a more generalized need to learn more about anything and everything.

The natural progression for a scholar is to simply become a more well respected scholar. Students eventually become teachers. Those whose knowledge is widely known and respected become sages. Many of these will claim that they remain students all their lives - always in pursuit of more knowledge.

Scholars who decide to take up adventuring often do so as a way to continue that pursuit of knowledge. After reading about far-off places, there is a desire to actually go there. After reading about rumors of some long-lost skill or special tome, there is a desire to go seek it out. Most wizards and many clerics begin their lives as scholars. Those that fail as scholars typically find any of the other adventuring professions more appropriate.

Your social standing would have been very dependent on your particular situation. A younger scholar pursuing knowledge that will lead to a successful career would be thought highly of by most, but not all. Elder sages are almost universally respected, at least as long as the Folk believe their knowledge is true and helpful. But there are always members of society that, perhaps due to their own shortcomings, look down on scholars as loafers who refuse to do an honest day's work. These Folk do not hold their scholars in very high regard.

Alternative Names

Student (if younger), Sage (if older), Bookworm
A number of far more derogatory names might be used by those who do not see the value in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.