NukeWorker Forum
Career Path => Training, Tests & Education => Topic started by: Brian on Oct 29, 2008, 08:16
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As I was just browsing around, and came upon a topic about controls and such, and I remembered something that I heard before and would like to see if others concur. That something would be Nuclear Engineering being considered a broad range engineering. Something that I have noticed thus far in my college career, is how some of the engineering degrees narrow down a lot. I believe that one of my interests in a Nuclear Engineering degree is how it manages to combine Mechanical, Civil, Chemical, Electrical, and finally, Nuclear all in one. With this being my taught, would others agree or disagree?
Brian
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I say no. The only crossover I see in the NE degree is the thermalhydraulics, heat transfer, and rankine cycle coverage, though it is cursory compared to what one gets in a Mech Eng program. The Dynamics you would get is just basic Elec Eng curriculum.
Reactor physics, Radiation Physics, Nuclear Fuel Cycles, etc are pretty specific to being a nuclear engineer. If you really want to be broad but make yourself attractive to the industry, get a BS Mech Eng with a Nuc Eng minor.
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I think a BS in Nuclear Engineering and then becoming an operator would give the best range in knowledge and skills.
The degree just gets you in the door for an interview. The real education starts once you enter training and start earning quals. This goes for engineers and operators. You will get the training you need for the job you take.
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My personal opinion is that nuclear engineering education is broader than most disciplines. I'm basing this on my college experience, where nuclear engineers took the most classes from other disciplines.
California has some really strange professional engineering registration laws. As a part of the process for revising those laws, their PE board commissioned a study. One of the chapters of the report specifically addresses the issue of overlap in engineering education and on the PE exam.
The report is at:
http://www.cspe.com/FunctionalAreas/GovtAffairs/titleact/titleact1.htm
See chapter 8 for the analysis of educational overlap, and chapter 10 for overlap on the various PE exams.
The overall conclusion of the report was that most engineering areas had a lot of overlap with other engineering areas. This isn't a big surprise, given that most engineers spend at least 2 years taking courses in engineering fundamentals (thermo, heat transfer, statics and dynamics, properties of materials, etc).