This study attempted to survey nursing students' motives for choosing nursing as their major, and to examine how such motives affect their satisfaction with their major, campus-life satisfaction, and self-directed learning ability. This study was conducted as a descriptive survey. Data were collected using a self-report questionnaire during the period from the 1st to 15th of April, 2015, and the questionnaires from 195 nursing students were used in the analysis using Fisher's exact test, t-test, one way ANOVA, Mann Whitney test, and ANCOVA. Only 41.5% of the nursing students chose nursing as their major because of their aptitude and interest. The motive for the selection of the major was found to have a significant effect on their satisfaction with the major (p<.001), campus-life satisfaction (p=.008), and self-directed learning ability (p=.001). Middle and high school students should be provided with various types of information on nursing, so that they can have the opportunity to choose nursing based on their aptitude and interest before entering university. Once they start university, nursing students' adjustment to campus-life and learning ability should be enhanced through various extracurricular activity programs in order to stimulate their interest in the major.

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