sluice wrote:
I went on field trips in college where we caught and identified reptiles and amphibians in the wild. I've never had one as a pet or done much with exotic, non-North American reptiles. I am not sure how well I would do with reptiles as pets, but maybe I'll try if I am able one of these days.

Corn snakes, milksnakes, kingsnakes, and ball pythons are popular snakes for beginners and are pretty easy to care for. I have a corn and a ball. The only issue with ball pythons is that some of them can be very picky eaters or decide to not eat for awhile for no apparent reason. Even larger snakes like boas are pretty easy to care for(just everything on a larger scale.. bigger food, more feces to clean up, etc), but because of their size it's a good idea for people to have a little experience with snakes first and be sure they are completely comfortable with a snake of that size. This is even more important with the giants like burmese pythons, reticulated pythons, etc., because if you accidentally do something to put them in a bad mood, or you aren't careful enough and get mistaken for food, then you're going to need to be able to handle it(and hopefully not get badly injured).
But, yeah.. Corns, milks, kings, balls, and a lot of other smaller snakes are pretty much harmless though. The absolute worst case scenario with them would be that you need to wash/disinfect a bite and put a bandaid on it.. lol. Heck, even with big snakes a bite isn't always a big deal. I got bitten on the arm by my retic(and they have some big teeth) back when she was about 8 or 9 feet long... It bled quite a bit, but i held her a little longer, put her back in her enclosure, and just washed it off. The end. It didn't even leave a scar. So.. yeah.. and compared to that, a ball python bite is nothing.. So i really don't understand why people are afraid of small to medium sized nonvenomous snakes. It makes no sense. I'd much rather get bitten by a large or giant snake than get seriously bitten by a medium dog.
As for lizards, leopard geckos and bearded dragons are popular pets. Neither are very difficult to take care of, but they require a little more attention than snakes.. Mainly because they eat more often. Leopard geckos are easier in my opinion, just because they are smaller, require smaller enclosures, don't require UVB light(nocturnal), and have a simpler diet. You can just feed leos some mealworms and/or crickets, while a beardie will require those plus vegetables. There are also other types of geckos that are less popular but are just as simple or almost as simple to take care of as leos are, like crested geckos or fat-tailed geckos. And there are other lizards like uromastyx and blue-tongued skinks that aren't really harder to care for than bearded dragons are.
My favorite lizards are argentine tegus, but they get large, require a very large enclosure(mine lives in an 8 foot long by 3 feet wide enclosure), and get too big for an insect-based diet(they will eat whole rats, raw turkey, fruit, eggs, lots of stuff). I think they are probably better for someone who has a little bit of experience with lizards, unless you do a whole lot of research about them.
Anyway, i think getting a reptile pet is a great idea as long as you get something that you know you will be able to take care of and do your research first