Evolution of Nuclear Power Training

[u/Smooth-Bad-5425]

This post is mainly for the folks that spent at least a 20 yr active duty career in the nuclear power program over a few years ranges:

1980-2000;

1990-2010;

2000-2020; and

2010-present

What I'm curious about is whether over the time period from 1980 to the present, the nuclear power program changed such as difficulty & entrance requirements.

For data purposes, I was an ET from 1986-1992. Back in 1986, ETs went through Basic Electronics & Electricity for around two months or so where we learned all about the subject and went through circuit board troubleshooting. ET "A" school had antenna theory, transistors & tube, and the SPS-10 radar system (not very nuclear related at all). For the newer folks, ET "A" school for nukes back then was 2200-0600 daily. That was rough. Nuke school was probably similar to current academics and prototype was attended at either Idaho, Ballston Spa, or Windsor CT.

If anyone can chime in and give me program info over the years that would be much appreciated.

In summary, I have a feeling that making it through the training pipeline is more difficult now than what it was 40 yrs ago (that is such a depressing idea!).

Thanks!

[u/New_Mammoth2254]

Powerschool is easy AF now. 70+% require no more than 15-2s to get over a 3.0 . If you fail comp you recomp. If you fail recomp you get an academic board where they feed you the answers. Basically impossible to fail academically. Before you get to that point they've probably rolled you back already so you see most of the material twice. Not nearly as hard as I've heard it used to be...

[u/Navynuke00 → u/New_Mammoth2254]

I'll argue that's because the older system of piling on as many hours as possible was a terrible idea and didn't track with educational theory and research even 25 years ago.

[u/arestheblue → u/Navynuke00]

At a certain point, you aren't gaining anything by spending more time studying and being forced to spend more time in the building makes it tougher to engage with the content while its being taught. That was my experience anyway. I engaged a lot better when I was on volunteer hours.

[u/ike0069 → u/arestheblue]

I was in school in 1993 and was on S-20/3 my whole time with right around 3.4 GPA. The max was M-35/5 and im not sure anyone actually made it thru that hit the mando 35 hr mark. I always believed it was a punishment meant to either drive you out or motivate you to get your grade up. I never believed it actually helped.

They didn't roll you back and if you failed comp you got an oral board which was basically an auto failure. From what I understand now from reading here and two co-workers who's sons went thru recently, its difficult to fail out now. The punishment now is rolling you back and make you do it again.

[u/djy887 → u/ike0069]

I spent all but the last 2 weeks of NNPS on M-35/5. I was a consistent 3.2 student. Two weeks before comp, I was shifted to V-35. Over a 3 day weekend I ended up with only 20.1 hours...it was spring break time in Daytona. EMCS read me the riot act and all sorts of threats...and I finished the last two weeks on O-35/5. Still finished the comp with a 3.2 yet again. The 'O' meant they told you when you were going to do the hours and you had to be in uniform and started each session with a uniform inspection. That was 1992 in Orlando. The forced hours did nothing for comprehension...I just sat there and doodled for hours after my homework was done.

[u/Smooth-Bad-5425 → u/ike0069]

I was on S-35 pretty much for 2/3 of the school duration. Had a family member visit Orlando and that threw me off. For several weeks I spent roughly 100 hrs (including the 40 hrs instruction time) in the school. Was perpetually sick from the stress. It got better when I started going to the bars on Friday night and the beach on Saturday. It was a case of the hours volume being negatively correlated to my grades.

[u/Navynuke00 → u/arestheblue]

Bingo

And the added stress of trying to make crazy hours isn't doing great things for anybody's mental health.

[u/RoyalCrownLee → u/Navynuke00]

My favorite stress was waking up at 0445 to get to the rickiver at 0500 so take my nap until 0800 on Saturdays and Sundays.

[u/Redfish680 → u/New_Mammoth2254]

So no need to bone up on Avogadro’s Number anymore?!

[u/New_Mammoth2254 → u/Redfish680]

I just graduated and have no idea what that means so ... I guess not?

[u/Redfish680 → u/New_Mammoth2254]

Don’t even think of looking it up. It’s just things they added to lesson plans to show how smart they were.

[u/Smooth-Bad-5425 → u/New_Mammoth2254]

Congrats!!

[u/New_Mammoth2254 → u/Smooth-Bad-5425]

Thank you!

[u/Navynuke00 → u/Redfish680]

I scored a 4 on the IB Chem exam and very nearly majored in chemistry after I got out of the Navy, and whatever they were trying to teach us in power school just seriously fucked me up for a long time.

[u/Sanearoudy → u/Navynuke00]

I didn't take chemistry in high school (or college the first time around) so the first "chemistry" course I took was in power school. Then I took General Chemistry 1 and already knew 95% of the material. My professor used a standardized Gen Chem 1 test as our final and graded it on a curve. Because the test included some nuclear concepts that he hadn't taught, I totally blew the curve. Based on my final exam grade (113% if I remember correctly,) he must have not included me when deciding on the curve. Which is all to say I don't feel like what we learned in power school screwed up my chemistry knowledge!

[u/purezero101 → u/Sanearoudy]

I interviewed well enough to land a job as a lab chemist in biotech after I got out and then realized how narrow a scope of chemistry the Navy teaches. I had to take two semesters of O Chem at night to even halfway understand what was going on in the lab.

[u/Sanearoudy → u/purezero101]

My Navy knowledge didn't help much in Gen Chem 2 and I'm sure it wouldn't help with O Chem. Not that I have plans to ever take O Chem! It is EVIL!

[u/ChrisAppleTree → u/New_Mammoth2254]

I saw that same from my experience going through 6yrs ago. Prototype seemed to be the great divide for my class. There were hard standards and if you fell behind it only started the avalanche that was nearly impossible to recover.

[u/Smooth-Bad-5425 → u/ChrisAppleTree]

Personally I thought prototype (S1W in 1987) was much easier than NPS. Qualified early and was rewarded with having to clean S5G.

[u/LickAnOctopus → u/New_Mammoth2254]

It’s 100% not guaranteed who gets a rollback. I had some personal issues which caused me to not do well in the first month and a half, which carried through the rest of PowerSchool so I got dropped from the program with a gpa of 2.34 even though I really wanted to be there, and two weeks later, someone I know who doesn’t care about being here AT ALL got rolled back with a gpa of 1.67. All of my teachers said I should be rolled, but my slpo decided against it

[u/New_Mammoth2254 → u/LickAnOctopus]

That is unfortunate. In my class it seemed basically everyone who was underperforming good reason or not was rolled. Policy seems to vary a lot by track