This research elucidates, as ideal types, conceptions about life and the social situation of the researcher. More importantly, conceptions about the value of what is called academic achievement. This is a category related to the culmination (and communication) of research processes, which has become generalized as product production. Typified conceptions deal with what a researcher is and should be, social science research and the very idea of achievement. Furthermore, they refer to how the results of academic activity are and should be valued and evaluated. It is suggested, as a finding, the coexistence of diverse conceptions about what is and what is done in the social sciences. The research was based on in-depth interviews with professors from social science programs at the University of Antioquia and the University of the Andes in Colombia.