Talk:Nuclear Power School

Women in the Program
The "Women weren't allowed in until 1994" is not accurate. Women were allowed in before that, but were then barred at some point. The reason being (as I was told) that they couldn't serve on war ships and ended up taking all the (highly coveted) shore billets. Sdblair 20:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

RE: "that they couldn't serve on war ships and ended up taking all the (highly coveted) shore billets" was a source of anger in the ranks. However I graduated in 1982 and there were two women in my class. I don't know when policy changed, but I do know it was until after 1982. Daniel Malcor - Class 8203 -Dan (talk) 21:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I went into Nuclear Training at 1990 and, at that time, no women were in the program. They started showing up on the ship in 1996, so I'm assuming that women started being trained in late 1994. Prior to the 1990's, I don't know. Class of 9108 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.100.44.152 (talk) 03:28, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

As a prototype instructor in West Milton, I had female students come through from 1980 through the middle of 1983. This leads me to believe the date range on allowing females is inaccurate. No idea about after that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.77.161 (talk) 14:55, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I was a female Navy nuke (RO/SRO/EWS/EDPO) from 1979-1988, and I believe they started letting women into the program in 1978 as I signed up in Feb 79 and went to boot camp in Sept 79. True, we were unable to serve on combatants. However, we did not take up any coveted "shore billets" on the tenders (for RADCON), prototypes for instructor duty, etc. Additional billets were created and when the female nuke transferred, the billet was not filled. I found this out by doing some investigating and contacting people in D.C. Unfortunately, this was not made public and it did cause a lot of anger. I thought I was going to go on a carrier when I enlisted and was disappointed when that did not occur. Why would anyone go into the Navy if he/she did not think that sea duty would not be part of the deal? Of course, when I was stationed on a destroyer tender, the guys didn't want us there either as we were invading their space. It was a no-win situation for women at that time, but I think the younger generation of men are more accepting of women going out to sea or working in the nuke field. btw, I was 11th in my nuke class and have worked in commercial nuclear (licensed-first female for the company I worked for) for many years, as well as other departments. I came across some great people, and some not-so-great people who gave me the motivation to excel. I am very grateful as the Navy made it possible for me to get my Bachelor's and then my Master's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephanieplum (talk • contribs) 13:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Notable Alumns
Can we get started on a list of notable alumns? I'm sure the list of well known, high ranking naval officers is endless. Rather, I would like to propose a list of prominent businessmen and others who have gone on to achieve success in their post navy nuc life. Note: The Simpsons creator Matt Groening was never a nuc. I don't know who started this rumor, but there are people out there who believe it to be true.

I had heard that Frank Zappa was a Navy nuke, but can't find any info confirming it. Sdblair 20:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Jimmy Carter was a navy nuc who went on to make a name for himself. I did not like him as President (especially when he froze my E5 pay) but I have to acknowledge he has definitely shown some humanitarian greatness after leaving office. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.35.77.161 (talk) 14:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Is this a recruiting advertisement?
This is NOT an attack on the program, its graduates or even the author, but the article sounds suspiciously like a Navy recruiting commmercial. I'm a graduate of the program (started in Orlando back in 1998 and graduated from prototype in Charleston), but virtually everything in this article is really a personal point of view. Is this program demanding? Yes, I found it so (and I do have a BS in mechanical engineering from a civilian university), but I found most of it over-hyped. The real accomplishment of the program is not that they're able to teach students these topics (even though all of the topics listed are in fact taught, they are only touched upon in a basic manner) but the fact that they're able to do it with many young men and women right out of high school at a very rapid pace. This is a result of effective discipline that many in the civilian world can learn from, though I wouldn't categorize it as anything different than the discipline asserted by so many of our servicemembers in other branches and other jobs of the military.Bdmccray (talk) 23:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

"It is regarded as one of the most difficult academic programs in the world." Unless something has changed, this is true. When I went NNPS (1992), the school was rated as one of the top schools in the US. MIT and Harvard were listed next to NNPS. However, I do agree the difficultly of the classwork isn't that challenging - it was the amount of classword. I have heard it described as learning two years of content in six months, which as you suggested, requires discipline and devotion and the ability to deal with stress.

I think people have confused Naval Nuclear Power School (NNPS) with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). You see it written somewhere that NPS is a "top school" and you think they mean Nuclear Power School, but they really mean the Naval Postgraduate School, which *is* a degree granting institution.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.138.230.118 (talk) 13:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC) Seriously; I will be attending soon, and I have already been through very challenging coursework, having earned degrees in AE (BS) and ME (MS), studying with the brightest minds in my fields of study. I do not doubt for one second that Nuke School is going to be an incredible challenge, and I am looking forward not only to working my ass off, but also to being engaged with extremely bright and ambitious people. However, this article sounds like some high school kid is really proud of his over-sized ego. There is more out there, young friend. Release yourself from the prison of your pride and you will become a more successful engineer than ever imagined :) And per the above comment, WHERE on EARTH is NNPS even listed?  Thanks.

P.S. Not that this is a big deal, but if you are going to portray yourself as preeminent, then go through the article and take out any grammatical and/or orthographical errors that appear within. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.60.240.162 (talk) 07:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

A previous, anonymous version of this page (which I corrected) stated that anyone with 60 credits will get a degree from NNPS, similar to that from the Naval Academy, once you complete the training. This is simply not true.

If anyone tells you can get a degree from NNPS or NNPTC, they've been misinformed, because it is not a degree-granting institution and is therefore not accredited as such. Additionally, if you do have prior college credits, they need to be focused on the general education portion of your degree (English, History, Humanities, etc.) to give you any added benefit. Otherwise, they will be of no use becasue they either overlap with the NNPTC training or do not apply to the curriculum. A Bachelor's degree is more than just an accumulation of 120 semester-hours of credit. The Naval Academy will not hand you a degree either. In fact, the Naval academy does not grant credit based on ANY source external to itself. If you are accepted to the USNA, its a four-year curriculum. Period.

This doesn't mean that the time spent there is worthless, by any means. I joined the Navy right out of high school, with no prior college and no AP course credits. My college awarded me 75 semester-hours of credit (or 2 1/2 years of equivalent full-time coursework) towards my bachelor's for my 10 months of NNPTC training (as an EM). You get no credits for the 6 months of Prototype training. I CLEP'd 24 more units (4 tests, 6 credits each), took 5 classes through the college (2 of which were 6-credit courses), and was done. Then I put in for Officer Candidate School and got commissioned based on my newly completed BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology. I've since attended the Naval Postgraduate School for their Space Systems Certificate Curriculum and am now attending Embry-Riddle Aeronatical University, finishing up my Master's in Space Studies. I don't regret it one bit. NukeBubblehead (talk) 23:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Several of the claims of the article are unverifiable. As a graduate of both the Naval Academy's Physics program and the Naval Nuclear Power School, I felt both were exceptionally challenging, but comparing NNPS to a university is unfounded since the two programs have different goals in mind. As a result, the author (or authors) of the article come across as trying to validate a personal experience by namedropping famous universities.

One example is the claim "Due to its depth and fast pace, it is regarded as one of the most difficult academic programs in the world, along with nuclear engineering programs at such universities as Harvard and MIT." According to the article at Nuclear Engineering, Harvard has no nuclear engineering program. A quick search of Harvard's website seems to indicate this is correct.

Another example is the claim "Naval Nuclear Power School is the only Nuclear Power School which provides hands on experience working with Nuclear Reactors." This is false on two levels. First, NNPS provides no hands-on training in nuclear reactor operation. Within the U.S. Navy's training sequence for nuclear operators, this occurs entirely at a follow-on school ("Prototype"). Second, several other nuclear training programs offer hands-on experience. Besides schools which house their own reactors for student training and research, (one excellent example is that Reed College runs their reactor using mostly undergraduate operators), virtually every nuclear operator licensing program includes some amount of logged hands-on operations time.

Finally, three claims are completely unverified, and likely false: - "Naval nuclear engineers are some of the most sought after professionals many times being seen as more valuable than competitors from ivy-league schools". - "Nucs have gone on with no other schooling to teach classes such as nuclear physics, reactor design, and related courses at the top universities in America, including Harvard, Yale, MIT, and other top tier universities." - "Naval Nuclear Experience is many times seen as an equal to a PhD in the related field due to the hands on work experience with running nuclear reactors as opposed to computer simulations."

My recommendation is that this article has a good round turn taken upon it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.113.104.149 (talk) 05:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with several of the posters on here. Let's be realistic about where we came from and put some actual verifiable information on this page. I removed all of the absolute BS regarding Harvard (no Nuc Eng program) and any other top-tier university. The program is hard, but let's be serious. I also removed the crap saying that it was the only place that gave you hands-on reactor operation experience. Several universities come to mind such as Penn State and Missouri (where I tried getting a job). If anyone has any proof that this program ranks up there with Ivy League institutions, I would love to see it so I can fluff my resume a little with it. 76.30.17.82 (talk) 02:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

So how many people on here have actually attended the school besides myself, and the other gentlemen that admitted it? I for one can vouch that both the course material and the pace make the school very difficult. Is the course material as difficult as found in top universities? It's probably on par, granted they aren't teaching Calculus III, Differential Equations, or the highest levels of Physics that can be found at the highest echelons in the academic world. The school is geared toward getting students what they need and getting them out into the fleet, hence why Art and History aren't taught there. Nuclear power is an old science. While the course work isn't cutting edge in terms of the latest technology and discoveries, the pace of the school does add a whole new level of difficulty. Originally a 2.8 GPA was failing. Now it's a 2.5. I graduated with a 2.9 GPA trying my hardest back in 1998. Prototype (the hands on school) was even more challenging. When I attended civilian colleges, depending on the class, I averaged around a 3.5 WHILE holding a full time Biotechnology job. All together, whether is NNPTC, NNPS, or Prototype, it's all part of the Naval Nuclear Power Training as a whole. I did hear quite a few times that the difficulty was on par with MIT and Harvard Medical school. What they based that on I do not know (attrition, GPA compared with other courses offered at other Universities?). I do know that school averaged a number of suicides a year due to the stress. I knew various people that developed some kind of a nervous tick or something similar. It's almost as if the school required the military discipline to minimize distractions in order to keep them engaged and focused otherwise given the freedom to leave, they would. I remember thinking that I couldn't get paid enough to remain in Power School as a permanent job. Even the instructors admitted the school was a beast. So lets give credit where credit is due. A guy from my ship currently holds double masters degrees from MIT, and he was an ex Navy Nuke. To this day the most intelligent people I have ever known have come through that program. To this day it remains the single most challenging thing I have ever done.

It is rated at the top of the list, not because of the high level math or the cutting-edge technology but because of attrition. It is really challenging for a high school student to grasp some of the concepts taught. As a high school graduate, I didn't have any hands-on experience with electronics or mechanics. The school required up to eight hours a day of study in addition to the eight hours of classroom instruction. It was hard to get the homework done and study in that amount of time due to the difficulty in understanding the concepts taught and crammed into a small time-frame. From a low-GPA student's point-of-view, it was almost impossible to pass. There were many that fell by the wayside while I was at Nuclear Field 'A' School and Naval Nuclear Power School. By the time you got to the Nuclear Prototype, it became easier because you got to see it work and it all started to fall into place. The average student was suggested to put in 20 extra hours a week on top of the 40 hours spent with classroom training in Nuclear Field 'A' School. The average student was suggested to put in 30-35 extra hours a week on top of the 40 hours spent with classroom training in Naval Nuclear Power School. By the time you were in prototype, it felt like a breeze because the most you put in was an extra four hours (and you got to tour the plant to learn anytime you wanted.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.100.44.152 (talk) 03:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

--- There are two separate curriculum at NNPS, one for officers and one for Enlisted. I graduated from the enlisted course. The Officer curriculum includes much more math (calculus) that is not included in the enlisted curriculum, thus is much more difficult. Additionally, the hours in a week devoted to study is very great, with struggling students assigned up to 45 hours a week of mandatory study, that has to be done in the school classroom.(this was the case in 1986 when I went thru). And yes there is a person standing watch in the class room to monitor and log the study hours. I do not have much more detail on the officer program since that was not my path.

All that said, when I was in, the comparison was NNPS, Harvard Law, MIT were the three most difficult, but no order given. I suspect the ranking (for NNPS) is from the fast pace and sheer volume of material, along with the number of hours of study required for an average student. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Totallyanalog (talk • contribs) 20:21, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

College credit
The information on college credits applies to enlisted training only; I will modify this material to clarify this. --24.99.118.172 (talk) 20:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI: Edits by an institution related to the subject may not conform to Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy.
This article is highly edited by non-logged in users. Here's a sample that I took of IP-addresses since last August: Goose Creek SC Area: Special:Contributions/71.226.105.214 Special:Contributions/24.11.129.58 Saratoga Springs NY Area: Special:Contributions/67.252.47.240 Special:Contributions/74.76.203.178 Special:Contributions/69.204.179.255 Groton CT Area: Special:Contributions/63.160.237.16 All these areas have institutions directly related to this article (US Navy Installations). Quazgaa (talk) 19:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That sounds like edits by people who live in the right areas to have relevant knowledge. Should someone who has lived in Puerto Rico be discouraged from editing articles relating to Puerto Rico? That seems like the same kind of non-neutrality. I mean, I understand where you're coming from, but anyone qualified to provide information about a place like this is going to have to be someone who has been there, or the information is going to have to come from promotional sources. If it's from promotional sources, then it leads to conversations like the one above, where the article starts sounding like a commercial.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by BurnChao (talk • contribs) 18:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Those IPs have one or at most two edits to the article (and most with no other edits elsewhere). This isn't like some company's PR dept stuffing an article, just some locals. As someone who went to NNPS in Orlando in the 80's, I can tell you it's probably not students doing it as they have little time for anything else. I'll look at the actual edits later but I fail to see why this is an issue. If it's properly cited, it's encyclopedic and welcome. --CompRhetoric (talk) 17:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I merely was pointing out what may have not been so obvious to the unaided wikipedian eye. This in turn may bring to light the other issues being raised above as to the question of this article being used for recruitment.  That is why this is an issue. I was alerting editors to the need to find verifiable and reliable thrird party sources. I recommend that you read Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy if you still do not think it is an issue.  QuAz  GaA  20:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Being close to the subject is only discernible if the relationship is somehow also disclosed (which I now do though twenty years removed). We are to assume edits are in good faith (except for the one who considered nuc school to be hell on earth which has some truth to it from personal experience) and on the whole, the anonymous edits you cited are just that and innocuous at best. While attempting to find COI through geo-location is at first glance understandable, it's simply not sharp enough. The course of evaluating edits on their individual merits is far more productive than trying to figure out what IP address (which is not to say location due to open proxies) might be influenced by geography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CompRhetoric (talk • contribs) 20:23, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Nuts. I meant to sign that. Twice today! --CompRhetoric (talk) 01:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

My attendance to Nuclear Power School in Orlando (1986)was very instrumental in my moving forward in my subsequent civilian education. I went on to graduate from a top university granting me a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. I was able to graduate faster due to credit inherited through my experience in this program and the discipline I acquired there was tremendously valuable in many aspects of my education and life in general. As a younger man, I was very undisciplined and had originally dropped out of college because of it. But going through this program set me on a rectified path that I may have no otherwise acquired. I don't care for the advertisement factor, but I do care about the effort and commitment that many of our service men have undertaken. I did not need to have received a degree from NNPS to have achived engineering success, but they gave me something more valuable than a piece of paper,courage, determination, and commitment. To qualify the impact of this school on my career, I ca say that I became a senior engineer before even finishing my bachelor. So there you have it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.245.252 (talk) 01:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Things must have changed.
"Failing students may be held back to repeat the coursework with a new group of classmates, but such students are typically released from the Nuclear Power Program and are re-designated or discharged." Wow things must have changed since my day. I was a academic wash-out in August 1991 as a member of class 9102. Back then there was no getting held back to repeat coursework with the next class. If there had been, I might have had a chance. Re-designated? Nope. Not back then. You were stuck in whichever non-nuke rating you got in A School: MM, ET, or EM. Discharged? Nope. Not back then either unless you got in trouble and received an other-than-honorable discharge. I guess I'm just old. Eric Cable ! Talk 18:22, 25 June 2018 (UTC)