I originally looked at military service in college when I was trying to go to medical school. I figured it was a way to contribute to the country and I'd get to travel while doing it. Well, that didn't work out and because I put all my eggs in one basket (you can't tell a 20 year old that who's never really failed at anything that he needs a backup), I wasn't qualified for much civilian employment outside of entry-level admin jobs or being a lab rat. Looking at the classifieds for jobs, I mostly saw:
-Nursing
-Some kind of technician/construction
-Administrative assistant/billing
-Engineering
All of which required 3-5 years of experience even if I had the right degree.
After bouncing around jobs reminiscent of Office Space, I gave the military a second look and saw the nuke officer program. Since technical/engineering jobs seemed in demand, I figured I could knock out two birds with one stone by scratching the serve my country itch and getting experience in engineering. I felt that this would set me up for a lot of options after my initial commitment; I could make another play at med school with GI bill assistance, I could use my experience to transition to nuclear power, or I could pursue further education/employment in another technical field. That's something that, say, being an artillery officer just couldn't offer.
Turns out I really liked the submarining aspect of the job (which is not what the recruiter will try to sell you on for sub officer and you have to get a little lucky with timing to actually get significant tactical experience in your JO tour), so I stuck around.
What I found out after joining the Navy is as follows:
-I really don't find the operational aspect of nuclear power exciting. Something about monitoring plant parameters that don't change while the boat is on a mission trying to collect stuff isn't really cool.
-The tech used on Navy nuclear reactors is nowhere near as 'cutting edge' that the recruiter makes it seem. All the modern gear is put into the combat systems, sometimes at the expense of reliability.
-Submariners work A LOT.
-The Navy nuke training pipeline isn't widely recognized by academia, so to pursue a career in engineering I'd still have to go back to an undergraduate university to get a technical degree and take all the certification exams.
-It would be really nice if I could predict that I'd be in one spot for more than 3 years so I could actually buy a house and accumulate an asset (I am married with children).
GLW put it best in the thread you linked:
Well, we're always glad we stayed because of CIVLANT employment enhancement,...
However, if you knew from the get go the USN was going to be your career for 20 years or more,...
NNPP is the last thing I would suggest to anybody,...
There are so many better 20 year options in the USN than NNPP,...
Had I known I was going to stick around more than 5 years for sure, I would've picked pilot or NFO in a heartbeat. While I was getting a good deal by standing 4-section duty (spend every 4th night on the sub, day starts at 0545 for pre-duty tour and often goes until 2200, but then there's a midnight tour to do and you're up again at 0500), my friend as a new guy in his helo squadron had 2 days a month, max 1 weekend day, and he spent the day at home after 1600 unless an emergency got called in (DWI, arrest, etc). He gets mando 8 hours in the rack underway; I was lucky if I got a full 6 in my oncoming time (the 6 hours before watch). He doesn't do deployment workups at-sea or inspections at-sea (1-4 week in-and-outs where the commodore and his staff stand over the crew and question every little thing you do). And the biggest one: he gets to fly an aircraft and make decisions about its safety without having to call an O-5 first. The QOL can't compare and the officer pay/bonuses for either community are not that far apart to account for it. Most submarine officers (myself included) will tell you that the best (and worst) of times was standing surfaced OOD. We only surface to transit into and out of ports, which lasts somewhere around 12-36 hours in most areas.
For enlisted nukes, the career outlook in the Navy is not good. The work only gets tougher as you get more senior since NR expects you to directly monitor everything under the sun as a nuke CPO and you will never get away from 3 or 4-section duty, at least not on an SSN, and that's inbetween working 16 hour days to run your division to get everything fixed in an aggressively short amount of time. Underway, you rove the ER watching people take logs or participate in drills you've done a billion times, waiting for the next opportunity to bail out your watchteam when someone screws up or something breaks. Both of which will lead to you being up for 24 hours straight. And you do all this for about 1/2-2/3 of what you'd be worth if you just got out, used the GI bill, and sought employment elsewhere. All the skills/schools you need to set you up for gainful civilian employment can be gotten on your first enlistment.
The biggest draw of the NNPP, particularly for enlisted nukes, is that it's an investment for well-paying civilian employment. But you're gonna put a lot into that investment.