Don't worry about the Math. I'm two months into power school, and just finished up the actual math course. I never got above a C in math in high school, but I came out of math with a decent score, and I'm sitting on a 3.25 over all. The best advice I have, which everyone has already stated, is just put an honest effort into it.
I have to say my experience was quite different from the above author. Before the Navy I had always had no trouble with math. In elementary I was placed in more advanced programs because of how well I did on various tests. However middle school and high school I slacked off and started smoking a lot of doobage, but still managed A-, and B+'s. Even when I took the ASVAB, I asked my recruiter why I didn't have to take other "nuke test" along with the rest of the people trying to get in, many of them had a higher overall ASVAB. He said it was because my math and science scores were so high.
However in Nuke Field "A" school and power school, I ended up failing the math classes (and there was no doobage involved.) Both of these math are pretty similar to each other in that Power School Math builds more on "A" school Math. They are both algebra intensive, and many of the problems rely heavily on symbols and letters, rather than numbers. The main emphasis of these math classes in "A" and Power School are to get the students to become accustomed to following procedure, math and non math related, and to use the correct sequence in solving the problems. (At least that is how they explained it after I was getting my arse chewed after each test I failed.)
In Power School After I had failed math I had a meeting with the Master Chief in charge of our graduating class (I can't remember his official title in the chain of command), who informed me that in the previous three classes, none of the students who failed math ended up making it through Power School (he could've been lying to scare me though) However, in both "A" and Power School I never failed another class, let alone another test. When I was able to apply the math to a real life situation I did fine. The difference between the math in the math classes and the math in the other classes is the math in the other classes were more than just doing the problem in the correct order of operations (remember PEMDAS?) In the other classes, I knew what the symbols were and therefore I could figure out how to apply them, rather than a jumble of letters and symbols.
This may not be the same for you. I would highly suggest that you if you do decide to join the Nuke Program it is something you really want to do. I thought I would like the Nuke Program, and I will admit I love the theory of a Nuke Power Plant, however at the end of the day, I was only a glorified plumber stuck on a crappy sub. Also, take a look at your learning style as well. If you can do math problems without it applied to something you should do fine with the math in all the courses, and it sounds from your statement that you won't have a problem with the rest of the courses. One really major problem is that they "dumb down" a lot of concepts to make it easier for some people to understand, to the point where it is harder some of the smarter people to learn. Dumbing down things isn't the way I learn, and a lot of the time we were told to accept certain explanations for theories as fact. More than once I would come to a conclusion based on what they told us to help me out in learning certain ideas/theories and would ask the instructor if my conclusion was correct, to which the instructor would reply "No." Most of the conclusions I came up about these theories turned out to be correct as I later learned in some of the post Navy physics/engineering classes I am currently taking. Some of the explanations of the theories I have found to be either quasi false or completely false. (Remember that last sentence when they try to explain Pair Production...)
One last piece of information about the Power School instructors. Most of the Power School instructors are Commisioned Officers... however many of them were hired by the U.S.N. to teach for two years and have never actually served on a sub or aircraft carrier. While they are quite intelligent, they are not always the best instructors. The best Power School instructors in my experience were enlisted men, mainly because they had real world experience with the Reactor Propulsion Plant. (Note! Enlisted POWER SCHOOL instructors not enlisted "A" school instructors. Although some enlisted "A" school instructors are great, a lot of them are complete tools and have no business teaching anyone about anything... however enlisted power school instuctors usually had to be pretty sh*t hot to be placed on the power school side)
Sorry... I made this much longer than I had planned. It's just that my idea of the Nuke Navy and schooling turned out to be far different than what I had planned. Keep doing research on it though... it is not a decision one take lightly. Good luck to you. Oh yeah... Wikipedia wasn't around when I was in school so check that out if an instructor explains something poorly. Most of the information is classified because they don't want people to know what specific things we learn, so most of the stuff that isn't reactor/navy specific is on there and might help you better than the foot and a half of outdated manuals they will give you.
