I totally agree. But your previous statement didn't say "for the primary purpose of..." You said, "In terms of enhancing your value to potential employers looking to hire someone with an engineering undergrad degree, the Navy is not going to be 'valuable' to you at all." That is an incorrect statement; technical experience does add value to an undergraduate engineering degree.
I think you didn't understand what I meant and I didn't state it clearly enough. But we understand each other now. My speaking of usefulness was in terms of whether or not you could obtain that experience elsewhere without delaying college.
I guess one question I would have to ask is: how valuable is it to learn the nuke trade?
You've asked this question like 3 times and it's been answered even more. I'll assume for now it's because you're not getting the answer you are looking for rather than just ignoring people.
Unfortunately, there is no quantitative number you're going to get out of this, and it all depends on your life priorities and goals (which come across as ambiguous, and rightfully so at your age). Also, consider your audience: You are asking a bunch of people who committed their careers to working in nuclear power if experience as a Navy nuke is valuable. The prior nukes will tell you yes because they view the experience as one of many that lead them to their success. The guys who never did Naval service will tell you not to bother because they got to their positions without it. Additionally, there seems to be varied consensus on this board regarding the quality of a former nuke; some will say it wasn't what it used to be, some think they do okay, some think they generally suck.
Ask the same question to a board of people who decided to go into a different career path post Navy nuke, and you will probably hear a general consensus that their experience helped them grow personally and helped them pay for college, but did not significantly increase their professional earning potential.
I'm telling you that there are many ways to skin a cat and if you make good use of your time in college, you don't
need to be an enlisted nuke to succeed in whatever it is you do. It won't make you a special superman where employers grovel to hire you. It's "career neutral" in lieu of other possible experience. As stated before, though, there are other benefits and drawbacks to enlisting that you need to consider. What really matters in your decision is how those other factors weigh. One thing that is blatantly missing from any of your posts is any sense of patriotic duty or service; you seem entirely interested in the Navy for your civilian employment benefit and without some motivation to serve your country you will have no job satisfaction to extract from the long hours and time at sea.
I have been looking for some more life experience to have a different/better prospective on things as well as camaraderie, since life has been I guess "boring".
If you are looking for excitement don't enlist as a nuke and I dare say don't enlist in the Navy. We aren't involved in full-scale engagements and outside of a select few rates your day-to-day job underway will be to rove around and take logs on gauges or sit at one of various panels/workstations. As a nuke you will only know what is going on tactically when the JO standing EOOW fills you in (the days of nukes going to control on a sub to maintain the time/freq and fusion plots are gone with modern combat systems). The most exciting thing you will do as a nuke is react to something that breaks, which will subsequently result in you getting very little sleep as you figure out how to fix it. Even if you go a tactical rate, you will be too junior during most if not all of your initial commitment to be on a battlestations/GQ watch that one would consider exciting, IF you are even on a unit that happens to lob TLAMs at someone. Finally, as a nuke you will have less liberty in foreign ports than your peers, and if you are on an SSBN you will not leave the US, so the 'adventure' outside of your duties is diminished.
As you are probably 16-18 years old and haven't really investigated what you want to do, you need to do your research OR take a path that leaves you with as many options as possible. You are probably bored because high school is easy for you and school is all you know. There is life beyond that, even in the civilian world. If you really are into nuclear power/nuclear maintenance and know that's where you want to go, then enlist or look at NUPOC for some experience and don't look back. But if this is something that you are considering among a myriad of other possibilities, a college education will keep your options open. You can always enlist (or commission) after college.
Also, would I be better of joining the reserves vs active duty, and just go to college while drilling?
Again, have you looked into USNA, NROTC scholarships, or NUPOC?
I know I may be told to "search" but...
Yes, because a good part of being a successful Navy nuke is being able to research the correct answer. That is the #1 useful life skill that being a sub officer has taught me. I even beat the IRS with it when they tried to charge me $1950 in taxes that I didn't owe, and I didn't need to pay hundreds for an accountant to do it. Part of making an educated decision is researching all of your options and what they entail. All it takes is typing a few words into Google, so there's no excuse.
