Starfleet offers a lot of different opportunities. Not everyone who joins has to go on a starship— a lot of people look for assignments on Earth, or other worlds, starbases or colonies. Scientific research and advancement has always been one of Starfleet's main objectives, so— yeah, I think it'd have suited you.

[ Granted, Jim would've been less likely to run into Victor under those circumstances, unless they met while at the Academy. But at that point he was more interested in hopping from bed to bed, rather than settling down, so. ]