To go Nuke or not to go Nuke....do you have an option?

Yea no kidding! I met a few of those guys in NSI...

They were desperate here this year. They pulled my whole class in for a series of rah-rah go nuke briefs, and then went through the selection list and pulled all the prior nuke power school guys as well as anyone who had ever expressed the slightest interest in nuke, and sent them off to interviews. One of my friends who got pilot was told he was being switched to nuke because he was a prior nuke power school guy. Luckily, he was able to plead his case directly to the admiral when he went for his nuke interview, and he was given NFO instead. If anything, the whole debacle just bred even more cynicism here.

wow....not that NFO is bad or anything, but that seems a little vindictive

I'm definitely fearing a nuke draft. While my ASTB scores are the highest in my unit, my GPA is also the lowest. I don't know if they'd force the super smart engineers to go nuke, or if I'd get voluntold as a consequence of my low class rank.

especially if he got pilot already first! sounds like getting pilot doesn't really mean anything until you actually start.

Seemed like the smartest here were selected... so have no fear! :icon_tong

sounds like this is one time when you might wish your grades and scores weren't so high! lol. :banghead_

The shortage apparently didn't stop the Admiral from denying 3/27 people who went to the interviews today.

(Yes, I got in).

Congrats!!

Forced Nuke Contract

The Nuke Officer at my unit told us that the nuke guys got a lot of guys last year for nuke (way over their goal) and they figured "oh, sweet, lets up our goal" but what they didn't realize is that it was just a fluke and now they're trying to fill these slots. I figured if they force me to go to the interview I'll have to think of some way to make it clear that there is no way I'm going Nuke, maybe I'll just sit in front of the admiral and "plead the fifth". The LT also said that the contract we were signing was non-binding, I asked him to write that in the comments section of the application (which by the way said "Non-Vol" at the top) and sign it, but he assured us that if we didn't want to go Nuke they couldn't make us. I wish I would've slacked off more in my engineering courses, maybe then the bubble-heads wouldn't be eying me! :sonar_125

Congrats to you. My question is how did those 3 lucky individuals manage to dissuade the Admiral? :icon_tong

Apparently it isn't hard to piss him off though, so I can imagine how that would be easily done.

A guy in my unit last year was denied subs after his meeting with the admiral. He was a physics major with outstanding grades, aced the technical portion of the interview, but the admiral didn't like him so he's a SWO now.

Basically, the only way for the Admiral not to give his stamp of approval is to act like a tool. If you have a reasonable answer to why you want to be a nuke and a self-accountable/learned my lesson explanation for any booboos, then he lets you in.

The problem with you guys is that he can probably make your life miserable if he thinks you're trying to blow it on purpose since you're already on track to become officers in the Navy.

If he asks you why you want to be a nuke, just be honest and tell him you don't. But he may not even ask that question. A couple of people just got "so what did you do in your spare time?"

Of the 3 people who failed, one was going for instructor, one was a cute female going for surface, and one was a no-show. They disappeared after the interview, so I didn't have the opportunity to ask them why they failed. I just thought the girl failed because the Navy doesn't allow any females above a 3 on a looks scale of 1-10 (I kid). Of those 3, one got re-invited back for April of this year, so it was probably the tech interviews that went wrong (I think it was the instructor).

I do know that the Admiral tried to "test" some people, including me. When I was telling him how/why I got acquainted with the program, he shot at me "but there's no biology on a submarine." My retort was good enough to get in. She might've frozen up at a similar line. Another guy was the president of his frat, and the Admiral asked him to define leadership. After every answer, the Admiral would say, "that's not leadership, that's paperwork. That's not leadership, that's..." He ultimately got in, though.

Spek,

as that 27 before they realized that they were short people or after. Also do you know if there are people that are going down for interviews now?

Also, the nuke LT here said the same thing about the nuke form that it was non-binding. The nuke officer said no matter what they will not MAKE people go down to interviews due to the fact that A) it wastes the ADM time and B) the whole philosophy behind nuke is that is it voulenTEER not TOLD because in all honesty would you really want someone that didn't want to be there working on nuclear reactors? The nuke community is very proud of the fact that they have not had a major nuke catastrophe ever.

I don't know if it was before/after they projected a shortage. They hold these interviews a few times a month (one for academy, one for ROTC, one for OCS guys, and perhaps some other occassions, to), so my guess was that the large size of the pool this month was due to the backlog from the holidays finally evening out.

It does seem odd that the Admiral would sign off on people who were "forced" into a nuke contract when one of his favorite questions is asking why you want to do this (and any answer short of something like "because I just need a job" will get you a stamp of approval).

I'm new to the navy i'm in the DEP program but i ship out AUG 21/08. I qualified for the Nuclear engineer program but I have also just received the NROTC scholarship which i will probably choose instead (havent gotten into college yet). this might sound stupid but why is everyone so scared of nuke?

Please do not alllow any recruiter to talk you into enlisted and go officer later. Take the NROTC scholarship, ENJOY college, then join the military as an officer. Don't make that mistake. As for Nukes it is honestly impossible to explain it and have people understand if they are not in it.

I know almost nothing about it except: 1. I am a pilot contract and I have no intention of giving that up. 2. If it was a good deal, they wouldn't be resorting to gestapo tactics to coerce people into checking it out.

thank you, my recruiter has not tried this but he's actually been pretty straight up with me through the whole process but others have tried to tell me that i'd be a better officer if i went enlisted first

Classic bait and switch...don't fall for it.

I think it's moreso that you have a pool of people who don't want nuke being forced into doing it. If your dream is to be a Naval aviator, and suddenly you're told you gotta spend your obligation as a SWO or on a submarine, you wouldn't like that very much, would you?

As for "gestapo tactics," it is very difficult for the NUPOC program to find qualified applicants for many reasons. They generally screen for a 3.0+ GPA in a "technical" major. Most people who have those credentials can easily make a killing in the private sector without having to be away from the family for months at a time, and sometimes with no method of outside communication (subs). Even after all the bonuses the Navy throws in (most of which occur after signing a second 5 year contract), it still can't compete with the private sector.

Another reason might be because of the stigma that "smart" people don't join the military. And another is that a lot of people just don't know about the NUPOC program, particularly the instructor part. If I knew about this path during college, I seriously would've considered it.

When on the interviews, there were 4 submarine officers -- three LTs and a CDR. The CDR obviously enjoyed his career, and 2/3 of the LT's loved it. The third one lat transferred to surface and was applying for instructor. His main complaint about subs was not being able to call his family and having too much responsibility, but I silently wondered why he didn't enlist if he didn't want to be responsible for people.

If you do some searching on the site, you'll find that the general consensus is that this is not so. They are just different jobs.

when I first went to meps I got a 97 on the ASVAB and missed the nuke program by 10 points and signed up for hospital corpsman. About a month later my recruiter came to my highschool out of the blue and said I got nuke. It was crazy but now i understand why. doesn't matter cause I got the NROTC scholarship like i said earlier. but it just shows how bad they want nuke.

Nuke enlisted isn't a bad deal, either, but if you want to be an officer it's not the way to go. My uncle and one of my ex's cousins were nuke enlisted, and both are doing very well in life right now.

So does anyone have any news if they are finding people to fill those slots?