What experiences create and nurture a love of science?

What experiences do college STEM majors report as being factors that encouraged them to pursue a STEM related major? Do experiences and influences in school such as labs, curriculum, and teachers make a difference? How do extracurricular impact a students’ desire to continue on in science after high school? Through this qualitative study I attempted to find some answers to the above questions. Seven current college STEM majors were interviewed in a semi-structured format. Through the coding of the interview data several themes emerged which included the following: development of students’ interest, experiencing real science, academic inclination, and knowledge of careers in the STEM fields. These reported factors seemed to influence these students in one way or another in choosing to pursue a STEM career. It was found that all but one subject interviewed experienced hands-on science within a career related experience. They cited those experiences as their biggest influencers