 Initially, Parsons was attracted to a career in medicine, as he was inspired by his elder brother so he studied a great deal of biology and spent a summer working at the Oceanographic Institution at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.Parsons' biology professors at Amherst were Otto C. Glaser and Henry Plough.Gently mocked as "Little Talcott, the gilded cherub," Parsons became one of the student leaders at Amherst.