Potential Nuke Candidate. NUPOC after becoming a Nuke?

[mpanz3]

Hello all!

I have been perusing this website and the various threads on becoming a USN Nuke, life as a Nuke, etc. I'm glad I found this site, as there seems to be unlimited information here for me to absorb.

Anyway, here are some questions I have:
-I am interested in the NUPOC program, but I'm not eligible for it at this time(*). Is there the possibility of joining the NUPOC program after going through Nuke training, and perhaps spending some time in the fleet?
-Threads I'm reading indicate that people are not receiving their dates to ship off to Great Lakes, IL until at least 6 months after they sign their contract. Should I expect to wait this long (or should I expect to wait this long before the position of Nuke becomes available)? I am not in the Delayed Entry Program.

*- I am not eligible for the NUPOC program, because I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice, and have never taken any college level Calculus or engineering courses. I am an idiot for wasting my time getting this degree, because I have 0 interest in Criminal Justice. My life and passion has always been physics and engineering. In addition, I graduated with a 2.9 GPA (instead of doing my homework, I was reading about physics and engineering), and I was told by my recruiters (and I believe them) that my options as an Officer with a CJ degree are either Pilot or Admin. And I don't want to do either of those. And with that GPA, I may not even be chosen to be an Officer candidate.

Any response or point to a similar thread would be greatly appreciated, as I have not been able to find my answer yet.

[HeavyD]

Last entry on the page:

http://www.navy.com/joining/education-opportunities/undergraduate.html

NIUPOC is a program designed for individuals who are currently pursuing an undergraduate degree.

To correct you, you are not just not eligible for it now, you are not eligible period because you already have a bachelors degree.

Why do you want NUPOC?  Why do you want to be an officer in the US Navy, specifically the nuclear Navy? 

Here is a second link, courtesy of a 5 second search via Google.

https://www.navycollege.navy.mil/dsp_officer_prog.aspx

Information and eligibility requirements for the officer ascension programs the Navy currently has.  Since you already have a bachelors degree, you are almost 100% ineligible for any of these programs, other than OCS.

On a final note, once you join you won't see the fleet for approximately 2 years.  That is the duration of time you will spend in a training environment, learning how to be not only a Sailor, but a nuclear Sailor.

Apologies if this post catches you off-guard or ruins your day, but these are things you need to think about and things you can find on your own.  During my 20 years on Active Duty, the people I saw have the greatest success displayed this little trait called initiative.  Try and develop some, it will open numerous doors and help you around or over many obstacles.   

[mpanz3]

Thanks for the speedy reply. Clearly I am misinformed. From talking to my recruiter, he gave me the impression that there would be the possibility of becoming a full USN Nuclear Engineer after my 2 years of training (which I was aware of) to become a Nuke, but that I would probably have to spend some time in the fleet first. In addition, I would still need the degree, but that there would be the opportunity for me to obtain a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering or related discipline (in order to become a USN Nuclear Engineer) relatively easily because I will have had all if not the majority of my basic degree requirements (such as English 101, and most electives because of my current degree), in addition to the credits recommended for completing all phases of Nuke training successfully. I was unaware that having another degree made me completely ineligible for this position. Regardless, I respect and will push my brain as far as it will go in order to become part of America's best and brightest, the USN Nukes.

[Gamecock]

Thanks for the speedy reply. Clearly I am misinformed. From talking to my recruiter, he gave me the impression that there would be the possibility of becoming a full USN Nuclear Engineer after my 2 years of training (which I was aware of) to become a Nuke, but that I would probably have to spend some time in the fleet first. In addition, I would still need the degree, but that there would be the opportunity for me to obtain a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering or related discipline (in order to become a USN Nuclear Engineer) relatively easily because I will have had all if not the majority of my basic degree requirements (such as English 101, and most electives because of my current degree), in addition to the credits recommended for completing all phases of Nuke training successfully. I was unaware that having another degree made me completely ineligible for this position. Regardless, I respect and will push my brain as far as it will go in order to become part of America's best and brightest, the USN Nukes.

Your low undergraduate GPA will haunt you forever.  Sorry, that's just the facts.

Your most realistic chance to become a nuclear officer would be as a Limited Duty Officer (LDO), some 8-12 years after you enter the service. 

Cheers,

GC

[Starkist]

Thanks for the speedy reply. Clearly I am misinformed. From talking to my recruiter, he gave me the impression that there would be the possibility of becoming a full USN Nuclear Engineer after my 2 years of training (which I was aware of) to become a Nuke, but that I would probably have to spend some time in the fleet first. In addition, I would still need the degree, but that there would be the opportunity for me to obtain a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering or related discipline (in order to become a USN Nuclear Engineer) relatively easily because I will have had all if not the majority of my basic degree requirements (such as English 101, and most electives because of my current degree), in addition to the credits recommended for completing all phases of Nuke training successfully. I was unaware that having another degree made me completely ineligible for this position. Regardless, I respect and will push my brain as far as it will go in order to become part of America's best and brightest, the USN Nukes.

Food for thought, enlisted navy nuclear training provides zero credits towards any engineering degree. Criminal justice won't give you many credits either. You will effectively be starting over. Do yourself a favor and talk to the dean of engineering at a college near you, and you will understand why.  It will also be almost impossible to complete an *engineering degree while attached to a ship. You could squeeze a class in here or there, but nothing substantial. Basically, if you want to be an engineer sooner then later, DON'T join the navy. If you wish to serve, and want to learn a totally different skill set, then pursue the navy.

*NOT to be confused with "engineering tech" degrees, whole different animal there.

[cheme09]

Gamecock is right; when it comes to NUPOC,  your GPA will haunt you FOREVER.  That's what happened to me, even as I was in the midst of successfully completing a master's degree in nuclear engineering.

Why do you want to go Navy Nuke?  Just so that you can go to engineering school when you finish your service (approx 5-6 yrs) and go to the commercial nuke industry?

Here are my $0.02

If you really want to serve as an officer, then go straight officer and don't worry about going nuclear. Talk to your recruiter about what's available to you.

If you really want nuclear, skip the navy and work on a degree now; or try to get into a field that doesn't require a degree (ops, hp, maint, etc).  The way the industry is going, it's better to get in sooner rather than later.  Waiting 6 years to finish an enlistment contract, then another 1 year to finish a tech degree may be too long.  Retirements are happening now and/or relatively soon; the market may be already saturated by the time you finish school.

If you really want navy AND nuke, then continue with your enlistment and know that going officer may be 8-12 years out like Gamecock alluded to.

The way I see it, navy nuke just isn't as attractive as it may have recently been.  The RCOH (refueling and complex overhaul) contract for CVN 72 was delayed. That's a big thing.  So big, in fact, that Huntington Ingalls has touted in the past that there is job security at their company since they have the only yard that can do RCOH's and there are six more carriers that will need to be overhauled over the next 20-ish years.  I don't know how it is on the govt side, but I imagine if funding is being cut on the civilian side, it is the same on the govt side as well, which means having to do more with less.  It also means the nuclear community is getting smaller in the navy, and therefore more selective - which in your case may hurt you.  Lastly (what I talked about above) if you were planning on going navy nuke to prep for a civilian nuke position, the timing may not be in your favor.  However, going through the navy nuke program will still provide you with good training and experience that you can carry into other industries.

On the commercial side it isn't much better.  This "nuclear renaissance" that was soon to happen never materialized after Fukushima and the advancement of natural gas fracking techniques.  By all means, now is still a good time to get in on the commericial side since a flood of retirements is still expected, but once those spots get filled, don't expect much more growth -  much like the 70's/early 80's.

[spekkio]

Good advice in this thread. One minor thing to clear up: NUPOC is how all civilian to nuke OCS guys enter the Navy, even with a degree. You collect like 1-2 months of E-6 pay while you wait to class up, and everyone gets jealous that you collect BAH while at OCS because it's TAD orders and you are permanently "stationed" at your NRD.

OP, if you want to become eligible for the nuke program ASAP, then go back to school for a year and take a calculus and calculus-based physics sequence, and get straight A's. That may qualify you for the program, but ask an officer recruiter before you spend money on post-bacchelorate classes -- the summary the interviewers and ADM at NR see have your technical grades, standardized test grades (e.g. SAT), and your overall GPA.

If you want a full-fledged engineering career, the only path to that lies in getting a full-fledged undergraduate engineering degree from an ABET accredited university. The Navy will not enable you to do that while you are active duty, regardless of whether you are an Officer or enlist, and since you already have an undergraduate degree there are limited programs to pay for a second one if you get commissioned. There are programs for you to get graduate degrees via NPS, NWC, or USNA, but they all will require a DH tour commitment (i.e. another sea tour) and you will not be able to pursue one in an engineering/technical course study because of your undergraduate degree.

If you go pilot you can consider these graduate programs to not exist at all because your shore duty performance will matter to the O-4/DH selection board (it occurs while you are on your first shore duty vice when you are at sea doing your DH tour for SWO/subs), so you will be competing for a flight instructor job unless your CO writes that you poop rainbows and gives you EPs on all your fitreps at sea.

It also means the nuclear community is getting smaller in the navy, and therefore more selective - which in your case may hurt you.  Lastly (what I talked about above) if you were planning on going navy nuke to prep for a civilian nuke position, the timing may not be in your favor.  However, going through the navy nuke program will still provide you with good training and experience that you can carry into other industries.

There are no plans to reduce the size of the carrier or submarine fleets at this moment, which will keep the amount of nuke billets available relatively constant. The VA class contract goes out to the 2020s and possibly beyond; there's no turning back on that unless Uncle Sam wants to pay EB for not building submarines. Judging by the success of this acquisition program among dozens of glaring failures paired with the operational utility of the fast attack fleet, I don't see that happening.

Selectivity is tougher, so I hear, but that's because unemployment is high and stagnant, which makes people turn toward the military for additional skills and OJT to add to their resumes. On the sub officer end, 1-2 year groups ago had very high retention and the detailers project this trend will continue for a few more years. I don't have fleet numbers but usedtafish had an unusually high amount of enlisted nukes report aboard with college degrees and in their mid 20s; these are people who enlisted in '09-'11 because they couldn't find employment and in some cases couldn't financially wait 6-12 months for an OCS application to be processed. I suspect that this trend is not unique to usedtafish.

The military and DOD turned off things it can easily turn back on, like delaying maintenance availabilites, invoking furloughs, and telling ships to stay parked next to the pier. None of this saves a huge amount of money in the scheme of things, but it is the most easily adjustable aspect of the budget -- Operations and Maintenance. What could happen is lowering bonuses, but there has been no official word about that.

[spekkio]

Thanks for the speedy reply. Clearly I am misinformed. From talking to my recruiter, he gave me the impression that there would be the possibility of becoming a full USN Nuclear Engineer after my 2 years of training (which I was aware of) to become a Nuke, but that I would probably have to spend some time in the fleet first. In addition, I would still need the degree, but that there would be the opportunity for me to obtain a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering or related discipline (in order to become a USN Nuclear Engineer) relatively easily because I will have had all if not the majority of my basic degree requirements (such as English 101, and most electives because of my current degree), in addition to the credits recommended for completing all phases of Nuke training successfully. I was unaware that having another degree made me completely ineligible for this position. Regardless, I respect and will push my brain as far as it will go in order to become part of America's best and brightest, the USN Nukes.

I don't know whether you misunderstood him or he is completely blowing smoke up your chimney, but much of what you wrote is false.

The Navy will not pay you to become a "full USN Nuclear Engineer after your first two years of training" with a CJ degree -- officer or enlisted. I don't know what NR Engineer programs exist or what the training pipeline is for them as I was not (and still am not) eligible for them; there were 1-2 guys I interviewed with who were invited to the job. They both had technical degrees in a relevant field with >3.5 GPAs and aced the interviews.

If you enlist, the Navy will not send you to college at all. The recruiter will try to tell you how enlisted power school will give you all sorts of college credits; what they won't tell you is that a select few schools will honor them and they aren't highly regarded (and I'm not even sure if they are ABET accredited). The only route to college is to use tuition assistance (you won't have time for this in your first commitment), PACE courses (again, won't have time), get out and use the GI bill, or apply for a commission through STA-21 (you are not eligible because you already have a degree). Also, if you enlist, it will not make you eligible for a commission as a nuke line officer. You need a college calculus and calculus-based physics sequence, so other than LDO your options would still be supply and any other line officer outside of nuke, which is what they are now.

If you go nuke officer, the Navy will not send you to an undergraduate nuclear engineering program to design reactors. You will eventually work toward qualifying Engineer, after a minimum of 24 months of at sea experience. This involves of 8 weeks of sitting at a desk and memorizing answers to a question bank involving different aspects of your ship's reactor plant, and occassionally asking O-5's to give interviews so that they can remind you that they're smarter than you. This is not a nuclear engineering degree; you don't get so much as a certificate at the end of the course. Successfully qualifying engineer makes you eligible to serve as Engineer Officer, which is a department head billet on submarines and nuclear surface ships where you are responsible for the maintenance of the engineering equipment and operation of the engineering department, which includes everything from plumbing to the main engines to the nuclear reactor. However, the NR part of qualifying Eng is only concerned with the reactor, but it is largely an operational and application qualification, not a design one. You don't do any design work and you will be hard pressed to relate your duties as a line officer Eng to what you might be picturing when you think of a nuclear engineer. It actually requires more of the business/project coordination skills than anything else to be successful, with a strong foundation in knowing and understanding the plant.