I think it was a combination of many factors, some motivated and some obligations! I was always into math and geometry in high-school. Where I grew up (Iran), we needed to take a national exam to compete against all other kids who wanted to enter government-sponsored universities. The competition was quite serious because there were millions of participant (my country was at its boom of young generation) and they all wanted to get into these universities (since they had top-quality and we paid no tuition fee). I was ranked pretty well in this contest, and thus, could select my major of interest. I liked to actually choose architecture as my major first. But, I don't have much artistic talent I guess (or at least not in drawing). So, I chose civil engineering instead which was the closest to building design (to my little understanding of engineering programs in 2004). What I didn't notice at the time of selection that the civil engineering program I had chosen was a double major, civil-geomatics. When I got into the program, I learnt that it is rather geomatics-civil :) That meant, I mainly had geomatics engineering courses and few civil engineering. In the first semester, I decided to change program but the rules stated that I had to stay for at least two semester, prove that my GPA is among the top 20% of the destination program and then I would have been allowed to join that program! Staying in geomatics engineering for 8 months, I grew to actually love the field, and stayed in it for master's and PhD too.