Graduate school is an intense period of identity formation, where scholars-in-training form the attitudes and values that shape their research. The extent to which students assimilate public engagement into their academic formation may depend on the system of beliefs that underpin their particular field of study. In some fields, public engagement disrupts the conventional forms of scholarship and elicits a peculiar tension. If graduate students are trained to think and act in certain ways, then what happens to people who choose to think and act differently in order to cultivate a community-engaged mindset? How can graduate students overcome a misalignment between their personal goals, values, and interests and those of their discipline? In this essay, I examine these questions through my experiences as a community-engaged doctoral student in biomedical engineering.