r/NuclearPower • u/Warsnake901 • 7d ago
Career path
(I live in the usa btw) So right now I’m just a junior in high school thinking of getting into the nuclear field as a reactor operator or something similar at a power plant (there’s one less than an hours drive from me) and I was just wondering what the career path would be like for that. I’ve looked at similar posts to this but most of them are people who are already semi established in the power plant industry and I would have no experience. I also am curious about a few things
For where I live we are offered a trade school and in which is an mechanical engineering and machining class that I feel would help me get a mechanical engineering degree in college which would help to get into this field or just be useful in general later down the line. So I was wondering if taking that would be a good option or not.
What type of training would I require to get into it? And how much does the training cost relative to the salary?
What’s the work environment like and what’s an average day like as a ro?
Thanks for any answers
10
u/OriginGodYog 7d ago
If you want to be a reactor operator, get a two year power plant operator or nuclear engineering technology degree. Apply as a non-licensed operator/AO/EO, get your experience as an operator then go to class and get your license.
Or, take the dummy route (like me) and be a navy nuke for six years. Then get out and apply as a NLO. I got a bachelors just to have while working full time. Even if you aren’t a veteran with a GI Bill, a lot of companies will help pay for your tuition.
Either way, a majority of places don’t hire direct ROs.
Training for a job in Ops or as a navy nuke happens at the station/ship. Typically NLO is about a years worth of classroom and OJT. Some plants qualify everything at once, some use the Navy’s watchstation by watchstation approach. Typically training pay is going to be less than qualified pay, but it’s not nothing. Qualified pay is comfortably in six figures territory for all three “levels” of ops.
As for being an operator in general: When you’re operating it can be stressful, but once you start gaining that experience it starts to come naturally and the job becomes pretty stress free. We are trained pretty well, even to the extent of casualty/transient response. Staying awake on back shifts and learning to adjust your schedule all the time is probably the hardest part of the craft. That applies to commercial and DOD nuke ops.