<p>What do you see as the future potential of the nuclear engineering field?</p>
<p>Very high. One of the highest possible potentials.</p>
<p>Are grads getting jobs in this field? How stable do you think the industry is?</p>
<p>At my school we earn an ME degree with a nuclear minor or emphasis. I applied for 2 co-ops and received offers for both if that is any help. I am currently working at a nuclear power plant as a co-op (summer through December) and have 2 semesters left of school for a little background. As far as I have heard from meeting with several people in the nuclear industry ranging from engineer to vice president, there is a giant demand because most of their nuclear engineers will all retire in the next 5-10 years.</p>
<p>Thanks for your insight, Wiemer. Do you think that your will be hired by your co-op company?</p>
<p>Can you enlighten me on what nuclear engineers do at your co-op? What do you do? Do you not need to know much physics to be a nuclear engineer? (I hope you say no)</p>
<p>There are a wide range of jobs in the nuclear industry. I can tell you that there are a lot of MEs and even some ChemEs. There is a lot more to the nuclear industry than just nuclear physics (I think some people fail to realize this) but to be a mechanical, or any type of engineer for that matter, you are going to need to have a solid understanding of physics. I mean, what do you expect? It is engineering. As far as telling what direction the industry is headed, I think there is still some uncertainty even though some estimates are encouraging.</p>
<p>I’m working in the design area and help maintain and look up specifications, drawings, etc for a giant probability model that shows how any individual action (shutting down a pump for maintenance for example) will effect the plant and what chain of failures or errors could possibly lead to core damage. As ME 76 hinted at, most of the engineers actually don’t have much if any nuclear background. I’ve met EE, ME, Chem E, Civils, Nuke E, and some people in programming all working at the plant performing engineering work. The actual plant besides the reactor and obvious security differences isn’t that far from a coal plant. To get access to containment you will go through some very basic radiation education however (compared to the major) of which no one in my training group had any issues with.</p>
<p>One thing to note about nuclear engineering is that there is a variety of areas one can enter and become specialized in. The commercial power industry typically uses nuclear engineering to help design and maintain the plant as well as design the fuel locations (it’s actually very complicated). The EPA looks for engineers that have knowledge of radiation to aid with cleanups. The NRC hires many graduates to check the engineering behind reactor designs as well design and check safety regulations regarding the nuclear industry. Companies such as Westinghouse, Mitsubishi, and GE hire nuclear engineers to design new reactors. A very fast growing area is nuclear medicine and detector design. I also know a guy that is getting his PhD in NE who’s education is all about modeling radiation through computer simulations such as MCNP. The degree isn’t really limited to just working at a power plant.</p>
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<p>That’s what I’m trying to get at. I want a job where I can apply quantum physics and more advanced topics. I do not want to be stuck on newtonian physics for the rest of my life, and I thought maybe Nuclear Engineering would keep me interested for 50 years while putting good food on the table. Is there any engineering major which fills these requirements? (As the username suggests, I want to major in physics, but I’m still looking around to make sure I haven’t missed something)</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies Wiemer.</p>
<p>Particle physics is a very large part of radiation detector design. Check out the KSU SMART Lab. Here’s the link.
[S.M.A.R.T</a>. Lab -](<a href=“http://www.mne.ksu.edu/research/centers/SMARTlab]S.M.A.R.T”>S.M.A.R.T. Lab -)</p>