I am a geologist who studies rocks and how mountains form. I'll answer your question about why I decided to become a scientist. When it comes right down to it, I love to know why things happen. Even when I was in kindergarden I was always demanding to know why this and why that. As a geologist I get to answer questions like "Why are there mountains here?" and "Why is the layering in this rock tilted?" Finding the answers to these questions is a lot of fun.

If you like to ask a lot of "why" questions too, then you might want to become a scientist, but if you are more interested in asking questions about people, then maybe geology is not the science for you. Can you think of any type of study in which you might ask why people do this and why people do that?

I used to drive my mother crazy constantly asking why things happened.When I realized science provided a lot of the answers to the why questions, I was hooked. To me, science is, observing a particular event, wondering about what it is or why it is, designing an experiment to determine an answer, conducting the experiment and then (sometimes) knowing the answer, or at least part of that answer. Also, all my life, I have loved watching nature shows on tv. At the beach, I wouldn't play in the waves, I would look for animals to watch and play with. Then, when I got to school, all the science subjects were my favorite and I did best in these subjects. It just seemed the logical choice. I liked science and was good at it.

I like to understand how things work and why.
As a scientist I work with other people to learn about how and why things work.

I love science and I love people.
I became a scientist because I love science.
I am human being because I love people.

I dont know how old you are but when I was in elementary school about 35 years ago in Pennsylvania (what is the capital of Pa ???) I did not like school very much...I found it rather boring and I thought the teachers were mean. In those days, the teachers were not as cool as the ones you kids have now. Anyway, even though I didnt like school, I was always fascinated by the things I saw in NATURE. I used to look at the stars at night and I wanted to know how far away they were, and I often thought about what it would be like to tracvel to different stars. Then when I was in the 4th grade my dad bought me a telescope. I remember the first COLD night in December on the night of CHRISTMAS day, when I took my telescope outside and looked at the MOON. I COULD NOT BELIEVE HOW COOL IT WAS. I COULD SEE CRATERS AND MOUNTAINS AND DARK AREAS THAT I KNEW FROM THE BOOKS I READ WERE GIANT FROZEN LAVA FLOWS!!!!!!. After that, I started reading everything I could about SCIENCE because after I read things I could check them out to make sure that the people who wrote the books were saying the truth. WhaI mean is that in SCIENCE you can check things out on your own and not have to take someones word for it.

So I guess I can say that the thing that brought me into science was CURIOSITY about the world we see ( rocks,volcanoes, life in the oceans , the planets and stars, how rockets work, what makes gasoline explode, how electricity works, etc) and the fact that in science, you can always do an experiment yourself to check out someones theory about things. This means you do not have to believe anyone just because they told you something; you can use your own mind, design an experiment or make a calculation and test the validity of the theory.

I hope this answers your question. You will find many different answers so dont take my word for it. DO AN EXPERIMENT: ASK 10 SCIENTISTS AT UCSB WHAT YOU ASKED ME. THEN TAKE ALL THEIR ANSWERS AND PUT THEM INTO A REPORT. THEN WRITE ONE PAGE SUMMARIZING WHAT YOU FOUND.

ARE THERE CERTAIN THINGS THAT MORE THAN ONE PERSON SAYS??(LIKE: BECAUSE I AM CURIOUS??) OR BECAUSE I AM FASCINATED BY NATURE ??? DO SOME PEOPLE SAY: BECAUSE I CAN MAKE A LOT OF MONEY???

THIS IS THE SCIENTIFIC WAY TO EXPLORE YOUR CURIOSITY ABOUT WHY PEOPLE STUDY SCIENCE !!!!!!!!!!