I never choose to be interested in computer science. It chose me, and infected the 10 year old version of me with a passion so great I mowed lawns for a couple years before I could afford my first computer. Fueled by that, and reading Eric S Raymond's 'How to Become a Hacker' probably scores of times, which, in turn, fueled an intense curiosity which has, with few notable exceptions, completely distracted me from whatever form of formal education I was currently involved in.
The times the two have collided, however, I feel the results have been magnificent. My sophomore year in high school, armed with little other than a few programming books my parents had gifted me and a GNU/Linux system I was just beginning to grok, I researched Conway's Game of Life and a few thousand patterns in a sufficiently impressive way that the regional science fair I competed in sent me on a week-long trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Two years later, following a bet with my high school guidance counselor and about a one-week crash course in Java(I was used to C/C++), I aced the AP Computer science test. And finally, as a direct result of my second exploit, I enrolled in the CSE 143 class and got my 3.9(Which you are, of course, aware of). But the grade isn't the point: The point is that I found it fun. Ridiculously fun. Not staying up all night to slog through the assignment I procrastinated until the night before, but not being able to sleep the night after the assignment got posted because it was too interesting to postpone looking for the solution.
But of course, I was wrong about never choosing. Most of my family told both me and my parents that a laptop was maybe the silliest thing in the world for a 12 year old to spend that kind of money on. I chose it in spite of that and never regretted it.
Computers are essentially the only opportunity to build a universe however you want it. I'm not necessarily talking about the latest MMORPG, but everything from a model of our current universe to tomorrows killer app--what Visicalc was in 1979. But the true genius in either of these examples is realizing how to do it: leveraging the single-user interface in spite of the reduced computer horsepower, or leveraging your computing horsepower with the most advanced message-passing possible. And every problem like that has hundreds of smaller ones that are just as important, and just as interesting.
Learning how things work is fun and exciting, but discovering new things is far closer to my true desire. I've already talked a little bit about this with my high school research. And that research always started with learning. So I'd like to continue school after earning my undergraduate degree.
a little about your long-term goals.
Of course, you can only spend so many hours sitting in front of a terminal. I thoroughly enjoy the study of chemistry and the (admittedly very little) ability I've taught myself with the guitar. I have spent a large amount of energy to become decent at go-kart racing. Someday I'd like to kick it up a notch and race stock cars.
(still need to figure out what to write about: how you feel you would contribute to the CSE community.)