Nuclear Officer vs. Surface Warfare Officer

[nuls2835]

First and foremost, thank you to those who manage and engage this website. The information available is invaluable. I have gouged all I could over the last couple days, so if anything I ask below is answered somewhere else, I apologize in advance.
I am a 27 year old married male, no kids, in solid physical condition (6’0” 150lbs) and have been working with my OR here in Dallas. I have a B.S. in Meteorology, minor in Mathematics & Engineering Physics, GPA 3.39. I have tons of Calculus, Differential Equations, Physics, etc.. Meteorology is essentially Math, Physics, & Engineering all into one. Had I known I would have dominated my last 2 years I would have tried harder my first 2 years and graduated with honors (3.40), but I digress.
Since I am too old to fly for the Navy, I was considering SWO, then transferring to the METOC program. After taking the OAR (62), my OR suggested that he consult with the Nuclear OR to see if I would be a fit for that program. I had not considered this route prior, but I believe it would be unwise not to entertain all options available to me. Is there anyone on here that either has experience or insight regarding the nuclear program? The way I see it, I know that I have valuable educational and leadership assets, and I cannot think of a better way to utilize them to the fullest while serving our country.
My first thought was that I did not have the credentials, but it appears I may be mistaken. I was told that there may be bonuses associated with this field, as well as a different commissioning method, Officer Development School. I am not familiar with ODS and would like a little guidance as to what to expect if I were to go this route as compared to OCS, which I have gouged like crazy for the last month or so. In addition to the aforementioned differences, it also appears that I would undergo a more strenuous background check to gain the appropriate clearances, so if anybody has any more information regarding these facts (as I understand them), I would be grateful.
How would you rate the SWO career against the Nuke career?
Pros and Cons of each?
Which would offer me the best path forward as a Naval Officer?
I apologize if any of this is redundant, but as I sift through this ocean of information, I am trying to pull out the nuggets of wisdom that would help me make the best decision for my wife and me.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

quick info for you ODS is for nuke instructors and naval reactor, OCS is for nuke fleet applicants.

do you have any tech grades B- or below, that could affect your consideration

if you go SWO are you prepared to wait a bit for OCS?

in general fleet nuke = subs, very few male surface nuke spots open compared to sub spots.

 

[nuls2835]

quick info for you ODS is for nuke instructors and naval reactor, OCS is for nuke fleet applicants.

do you have any tech grades B- or below, that could affect your consideration

if you go SWO are you prepared to wait a bit for OCS?

in general fleet nuke = subs, very few male surface nuke spots open compared to sub spots.

Thank you for the information. In terms of my grades, I got a D in one of my calculus classes early on, re-took it and got a B. Aside from that, the rest of my grades were B's in all my Calc classes, then A's in all my calc-based physics classes. I would add that the last 2 years of school included many dynamics/differential equations/thermodynamics courses (heavy in advanced calculus/physics), most of which I ended up getting A's. In all reality I am grateful for the D, becuase I cleaned up my act and became a better student becuase of it. I just received an email from my OR that he wants me to come in and talk with he and the Nuclear OR, and they both have seen my transcripts. I'm hoping they will take this into account. Do you know anything about Officer Development Sschool, or did my OR misspeak about this?

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Thank you for the information. In terms of my grades, I got a D in one of my calculus classes early on, re-took it and got a B. Aside from that, the rest of my grades were B's in all my Calc classes, then A's in all my calc-based physics classes. I would add that the last 2 years of school included many dynamics/differential equations/thermodynamics courses (heavy in advanced calculus/physics), most of which I ended up getting A's. In all reality I am grateful for the D, becuase I cleaned up my act and became a better student becuase of it. I just received an email from my OR that he wants me to come in and talk with he and the Nuclear OR, and they both have seen my transcripts. I'm hoping they will take this into account. Do you know anything about Officer Development Sschool, or did my OR misspeak about this?

ODS is ONLY for instructors or NR, those are a very tiny number of people brought in to the nuclear program, 99% go fleet and they go to OCS.

 

[Spekkio]

Well, just to clear some things up:

There are 4 options within the nupoc program: SWO nuke, subs, instructor, and Naval Reactors engineer.

The last two aren't comparable in any way to SWO, so can't really answer your question there. It's like asking what's better, a financial advisor or restaurant manager. They're entirely different jobs. As an instructor, you teach at nuclear power school in Charleston, SC. As an NRE, you work in a cubicle doing design/procedures at Naval Reactors in Washington DC. Both of those are 4-and-out staff corps jobs, meaning that if you want to stay in the Navy then you'll have to lateral transfer (there are some opportunities for the NR guys, but very few). These are the two designators that go to ODS. ODS is not something you need to really be worried about.

SWO nuke will take about half of your sea time and devote it to tours on carriers working in the reactor department. The focus here is on operations, where as NRE the focus is on design. The other half will be served the same as conventional SWO tours. You'll probably have less lee-way to pursue career interests that may be off the golden path because of this.

Subs is just that, you are a submarine officer. You don't split tours between engineroom tours and forward tours -- a good and a bad thing. Tough to rate SWO against subs, as I have no experience being a SWO. Be more specific in what factors might affect your decision and I could possibly answer in more detail.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

ODS is ONLY for instructors or NR, those are a very tiny number of people brought in to the nuclear program, 99% go fleet and they go to OCS.

something I should add, when we had a college graduate it was not uncommon for us to be told, "if he doesn't want to go subs, don't send him to interview"

 

[vxc961]

Obviously let OffRec correct anything I say, but your career will generally flip/flop, conventional SWO tour/SWO(nuke) tour.
On the "somewhat objective" side, here are the pros of SWO(N):
-A year of education/shore duty
-lots of bonuses, money thrown at you
The "somewhat ojective" cons are:
-More limited career path: While you are doing that one-year of schooling, your non-nuke brothers are out there being operational, often in fun jobs. There's also the conventional/nuke flip flop as mentioned.
-One or more of your shore tours will be in a nuclear billet.
-It is difficult to transfer to another community (like METOC) if you're a nuke--they want to get their money out of you.

In my experience, nobody, NOBODY *liked* being a nuke. Some hated it, and some were able to tolerate it with the blood money they were given. It's longer hours than anyone else on the ship, you have hours of training and testing each week, in addition to your regular job, fixing broken stuff, and standing watch.

That said, it is worth considering...just know what you're getting into. If it gets you in the Navy and conventional SWO won't (or the wait's too long), then maybe it's the right choice. I hated Navy Unclear Power, but in the end I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. Good luck.

 

[nuls2835]

I appreciate the help you have given, NavyOffRec, Spekkio, and Vxc961. I am not under any illusion this is the coolest, most badass thing one could do. I can take the path of least resistance (SWO), but knowing I can do something better is worth pursuing. With that said, I also recognize that it doesn't matter what you do, you can make it your own heaven or hell out of a particular situation. Could either of you elaborate on how the Nuclear career could impact my home/family life? I don't have any kids yet, but I know my wife won't want to wait forever. I would expect, as was mentioned above, that the first year out of OCS would be long hours in school. After that, I am not sure how the deployment schedule will be. Obviously for deployments, I would expect to spend time on a sub, which I had not condisered until the last few days, and time on carriers (and other ships). Regarding deployments, here are a couple questions: How often are the deployments? How has technology helped/hurt communications with family? Can you provide some not-so-obvious pros/cons to deployments?
This last question is one that I had not planned on asking, but since Vxc961 touched on it, I would be remiss not to take the bait. What kind of bonuses are included? Are they up-front bonuses, yearly, or both? From the context of your post above, despite calling it 'blood money', it seemed that it was sufficient to make the career worth it, for you at least. I am not going to lie, I have spent the last 2.5 years paying off almost $100K in student loan debt, only have about $10K left, and this would surely make up for some lost time.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

SWO conventional may not be the path of least resistance, they are already moving people to FY15 so that indicates they have selected more than they needed.

Spekkio would be better off telling you about being a sub nuke, chances of you getting SWO nuke are slim to none, like I said very few spots for male SWO nukes and most of those go to NUPOC who are still in college, I cannot think of a single male graduate that I had picked up for SWO N, if you are considering nuke get used to the fact there is a 99% chance you will have to go subs.

When it comes to nukes the general rule with college graduates is females go SWO and males go subs

 

[Spekkio]

As far as subs go:

When you go on deployment, expect no communication at all. On local ops, you can send emails that get transmitted when the sub comes to PD, assuming the weather is good and it's not taking forever to get required message traffic. If you go on a boomer you'll almost always have email underway, but you can't guarantee to be detailed to an SSBN.

Deployments are typically once every 18 months for SSNs, but there are exceptions. The Springfield recently did two 6-month deployments with 4 months inbetween them. But SSNs go out for training, inspection workups, etc. Depending on where the boat is in its schedule, you could spend as little as 33% of your time underway to as much as 80% of your time underway. The most frustrating part for my wife on an SSN is that I could never accurately tell her when we were going to sea the next time. Either we were supposed to go and something broke, or someone else broke and we had to go, we were supposed to go into drydock and then we didn't, or whatever. Our schedule was in a constant state of flux.

Also, that 4 months the Springfield spent in-port consisted of lots of duty and long work days to get the boat materially ready to deploy again. You don't go on vacation when the boat comes back.

For SSBNs, you'll go on a 3 month patrol every 7 months-ish, which equates to roughly 40% of your time underway. The kicker with SSBNs is that when the boat comes back, you turn over the boat to the next crew and they take it out to sea. That means limited duty days, whereas on a SSN you will still spend one out of every 3 or 4 nights sleeping on the boat no matter what. SSBN crews in off-crew go to the Trident Training Facility and basically do lots of simulators and classroom training.

If a long-term career is a thought in your mind, you cannot spend an entire career doing SSBN tours (it is possible, but rare, to do nothing but SSN tours). If you are on an SSBN as a JO, you will go on an SSN as a DH.

The nuclear assession bonus is a one-time payment of $15k, with another $5k when you complete prototype. The next possible bonus is the nuclear continuation pay (copay) bonus, available after your 5th year of service, which is an annual bonus payment scaled based on how long you commit past your divo tour -- anywhere from the $12,500 'rent a nuke' bonus for no contract all the way up to $30k/year for a commitment to a DH tour (3-7 years). Both of these bonuses are available to SWOs and subs. SWO nukes may also get a DH bonus, I'm not sure, but in the end it just equalizes all the submarine pay you'll collect in the course of your career. It's called 'blood money' because your duty schedule and workload on a submarine is generally higher than a lot of other designators (Queue R1 stepping in to say everyone in the entire Navy works the exact same schedule). The recruiter will tell you that you're on an 18 hour schedule with 6 hours watch, 6-hours off-going time for training, admin, whatever and 6 hours oncoming time to sleep. What he won't tell you is that watch actually takes about 8 hours with tours and stuff, you have to eat which takes 45 minutes a pop because you have to pretend you're eating a 5 course banquet every meal. That actually leaves 8 hours left to do work, get qualified, and sleep, and work is interrupted by various meetings/training/drills/whatever. It gets harder as a department head on an SSN, since you still stand 3-section watch while on mission and have a lot more meetings to attend, admin to review, and planning to conduct. Word is that SSBN dept heads barely stand any watch, they just prepare for the next inspection that occurs at the end of every patrol. SWOs are generally 5+ section duty in-port as JOs, you'll only see that as a JO on an SSN right after deployment when the wardroom is all qualified. But shortly after 2-4 people will transfer, you'll get two nubs in return, and you'll be back to 3 or 4 section duty.

Quite honestly, you make enough as an officer that the nuclear assession bonuses shouldn't be factored into your decision process. You can pay off your $10k fairly easily with your paycheck, or you could essentially 'refinance' it by taking the commissioning loan at 1.99%. The copay bonus was not a factor in my decision to stay in the Navy; the fact that I enjoyed my job and could get a master's degree on shore duty was. I will also reiterate that that money is for keeping you in the nuke community, something that becomes sort of a thorn in your side if you are a Nav or Weps during your DH tour. If the USN had an SSK option, I'd probably take it because nuclear power just doesn't 'do it' for me.

I knew what I was getting into when I signed up. I was single at the time, the SSN mission sounded cooler, and I felt I needed a kick in the nuts to actually work hard at something. I liked my job enough to stay past my divo tour; I'm one of a very very small minority of sub officers who won't start spouting off about how much I hated my job on the boat. I'm glad I did it, but it's not for everyone.

 

[vxc961]

Spekkio said it better than I could have. Nuclear power school was tough me as a 22 year old. I tried to master each subject or system, and in the end did pretty well by pumping hours and hours into the program. You're a little older, so I think you'd be fine (a) understanding what you actually need to know, and (b) accepting that if you get a C here or there but keep your wife happy, you're doing OK. I studied from 6am to 10pm six nights a week, leaving at five on Sunday's to make my meals for the week. But, there were plenty who did an hour or two after class, nothing or almost nothing on the weekends, and did fine. Prototype (the second six months, you work on a reactor) were pretty much the same, except you rotate through shift work.

I was on Enterprise, so the combo of being a million years old and one of a kind meant stuff was breaking all the time. While in port, we had duty once every 3, 4, or maybe even 5 days. The rest of the ship had duty every 8-10 days. Despite your duty rotation, you're expected to be there M-F from like 7-4.

Underway, we started in 3, then 4 and five section duty as more people got qualified to stand watch. So for three section duty, you would have the watch from 0400-0800 and 1600-2000. Again, you're expected to do your divo job from like 6-4, and take care of the stuff that breaks whenever it does, and go to the 3(?) hours of training per week for nukes. 3 hrs doesn't sound like much, but with watches and other stuff, inevitably that training is at a time that jacks up your sleep. Despite all that, I have to tell you that it's incredibly rewarding, and you work with some really hard working folks, and learn just how much you can do in a day. Even with that sched, you could find 10 minutes per day to hop on a computer and email your wife, and many of us snuck on the Reactor Officer or CHENGs satellite line to call home once in a while. Back when I did it, OCS guys went to the carrier first, so we had to find the time to qualify SWO in there too.

In my observation, the sub guys were much less bitchy about the nuke program than SWO(N)'s were. We got see the rest of the ship watch movies, play video games, and do nothing on their infrequent duty days, so we were a bit obnoxious I think. There are some cool 2nd tour SWO jobs out there--working with hovercraft, embedded with Marines, on a command ship that barely goes to sea, etc..), but a SWO(N) your second tour is going to be on a carrier.

I'll second and modify Spekkios comments: I hated my time as a nuke, but I tried not to let it effect my work performance i got my SWO pin, and got sweet 2nd tour--I have had fun in the reserves since then.

Also, everyone always said that SWO(N)'s couldn't redesignate to another community, but I've never known anyone who's tried.

 

[Spekkio]

you're expected to be there M-F from like 7-4.

4? More like 6.

At least our ER is air conditioned .

3 hrs doesn't sound like much, but with watches and other stuff, inevitably that training is at a time that jacks up your sleep.

In a vacuum it's not. But if you pile it into all the other training you have to do, it amounts to 8 hours a week. Now, if you were to count drills as training, which they kind of are, it bumps to 12.

So you spend 60 hours a week standing watch (including tours/turnover) and another 12 doing training before you've even done anything else.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

4? More like 6.

At least our ER is air conditioned .

yeah, I didn't even have air conditioning in my office, but I did have a POTS line at my desk so even though I was sweating in the Gulf I could call home quite easily.

 

[Spekkio]

What's kinda funny is that you missed the opportunity to dig at the fact that you even had an office to sweat in.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

What's kinda funny is that you missed the opportunity to dig at the fact that you even had an office to sweat in.

to be honest sometimes having an office isn't a good thing, but sometimes it is, before I had a job that gave me an office I thought how nice it would be, especially since I saw the guy before me kicking back, watching movies, having a good time, then I got his job and I quickly realized why I replaced him, because if the job was done right there was no time for that nice stuff he was doing, damn work ethic!