Well, thank you for all the replies. Yes, I'm probably arrogant, I'm sorry.
Anyway, a couple notes:
-you don't have to go nice on me cause I'm a female.
-I'm uninterested on how my navy career will affect my civilian career afterwards. The job I intend to do after the navy will have little to do with the nuke or crypto field. My goal is just to make the most of my time in, however long that is.
-I'm not afraid of hard work
As for what it takes to be a nuke officer, I know there are other threads on here regarding that, many of which I have read. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how best to go about becoming one from my situation. For instance, when I choose my school and education route, would it be best/necessary to act as if I was in the nuke program?
And also for the STA-21 program you're expected to explain your field choice. Since I can't choose Nuke, anything else I choose I'm not particularly passionate about, so I'm afraid of coming off as unenthusiastic. So my question regarding that is, should I choose the CORE option, and explain my aspirations to go nuke? or choose a different field, (crypto, intel... etc) in order to have better chances of being picked up?
I'm not sure how it is at other schools, but at the Citadel, all NROTC students (STA-21 and Midn NROTC scholars) are required to take Calc I/II and Phys with Calc I/II to ensure that everyone meets the minimum requirements for Nuke. I don't know if this is a NROTC standard or just a school requirement, but I can look into it after we come back from spring break. That's the only literal requirement that I'm aware of, but pursuing a science or engineering degree can only serve to better your odds. We had a SWO STA-21 select find out that he was going SWO-Nuke, probably due in large part to his Engineering degree.
As far as the interview process goes, I would kind of keep your answers in the middle of the road, so to speak. If I were in your shoes, I would express your interest for being a Nuke O in order to show that you have goals and that you're up for a challenge while also mixing in a healthy amount of de facto Officer leadership answers. Doing so addresses the potential that you don't become a nuke but that you will still be motivated to succeed and it also prevents you from sounding arrogant as though being selected for nuke is a done deal.
But yea, being a nuke isn't math, that's not what you'd be getting in to at all. I know that its been pointed out to you already, but I wanted to make sure you heard from someone who was also trying to sound like a decent human being. You can, however, major in math as a STA-21 nuke, so I would imagine that it would aid you in your efforts towards getting selected. The 3 years of working on those critical thinking skills could serve you very well, despite the lack of a truly direct benefit.
Other things you can do to help yourself (assuming selection) is to serve in leadership roles in the battalion, maintain a high gpa, do well on PFA, etc. There is a point system in place to rank ROTC graduates based on performance values, and the better your score, the more likely you are to get your desired assignment.
