It does not make you a nuclear engineer. Officers do have a chance to become nuclear engineers through PNEO (Prospective Nuclear Engineering Officer) school, which is a course they must take to advance further in their career should they choose to make it a longer commitment - but this doesnu2019t happen until years after they join. Enlisted recruits and Officer candidates seem to like the notion of being a u201cnuclear engineer,u201d and, not knowing the difference, say theyu2019re going to become one when joining up. This one doesnu2019t actually affect anything. Just thought Iu2019d get it out of the way.The course work is stressful. The military needs itu2019s people out in the field quickly, both to save money, improve manning (and therefore moral), and frankly itu2019s just better training. All of these things make the Navy a more effective fighting force. Now, consider the fact that all of the individuals in the field are highly, highly intelligent. Some figures put them at the top 5% of Americans. Being that the US Navy is not an equal opportunity employer they can afford to cut the fat off the bottom (anyone who shouldnu2019t have joined but slipped through the cracks) and make the course work as hard as it needs to be. They can afford to shove information down your throat as fast as the average highly-intelligent person can handle. This means that things you might have covered in a week of high school or college might be condensed down and covered in just one day. This means that most students in the NNPP will be spending upwards of twelve hours towards their education a day, plus required weekend hours of study.You wonu2019t be the smartest person around anymore. Most people who go into the Navy Nuclear field are used to being the nerd of the class, always being able to somehow absorb knowledge while half-asleep in class, without ever studying for tests. Those days are over. In my years of going through the educational program and now teaching it, Iu2019ve only met two people who could coast through, and they had either eidetic memory or nearly eidetic memory. This often results in feelings of mental inadequacy. Unwarranted, to be sure. They just arenu2019t used to being the dumbest-of-the-smartest. Itu2019s still something to be proud of.The US Military is not an equal opportunity employer. While they will often try to be u201cpolitically correct,u201d with who they recruit (I was told that as a White Male my chances of being an officer were slim), they do still hold to their standards. The military deals with life-and-death situations, which is no time to start getting emotional about u201cfairnessu201d over who gets hired.It doesnu2019t matter if you have a legitimate reason outside of your control to be producing a lower-quality product, like it does in the civilian world.Itu2019s rewarding. People, especially sailors - who are only happy when complaining - often have a tendency to focus on the negative, while ignoring all of the awesome stuff that becomes regular. u201cMan, I had to bounce the plant three times last night!u201d Translation: I started up a nuclear reactor not once, but three times in the course of an evening. u201cI hate going into the Crystal Palace on the weekend.u201d Translation: Iu2019m attending the nationu2019s second most difficult educational institution, ensuring me job security that many Americans would kill for after attending the worldu2019s premiere nuclear-educational institution, and save for a dishonorable discharge, Iu2019m guaranteed at least a decently paying job post military. Keep in mind that while the work is stressful, after the training pipeline, youu2019ll be doing awesome stuff on the regular. u201cAwesomeu201d will become mundane to you. And you can swing it in interesting ways; I sometimes tell people my job is Alchemy. I regularly turn metals into gold. It isnu2019t much gold, but Iu2019m fairly certain Iu2019ve made enough gold for a few rings in my years in the Navy. Getting that gold out, however, would be tricky. Itu2019s more than just bragging rightsu2025 and less, at the same time. The guy in the shipu2019s barbershop that canu2019t cut hair to save his life is the same rank as you (or, if you went through NUPOC, is the same rank as the highly-intelligent enlisted guys that serve under you) and therefore makes roughly the same amount of money as a guy that has to perform continuously at near-perfection levels when dealing with complicated nuclear fission. The officer that canu2019t understand that a 100,000 ton warship has something called u201cmomentumu201d and calls down to the reactor plant to ask why they arenu2019t slowing the ship fast enough, or speeding up fast enough, gets paid the same amount as the officer in charge of that reactor plant (if they are of the same paygrade, of course). Beyond that, you do some cool stuff. u201cWarheads on foreheads.u201d Humanitarian missions. Narrowly dodging errant cargo ships who blatantly disregard port officials. Stuff you wonu2019t be able to talk about with friends and family, but will always have as memories with your sisters and brothers in the military.It means long hours. Schooling, fleet, or shore duty, youu2019ll often have a lot of work to burn through.u201cStrive for perfection, settle for excellence.u201d Performing perfectly often gets you little more than a u201cGood job today, folks.u201d Messing up gets you yelled at and more work. Excellence is a part of the job. Little mistakes can have drastic consequences, so all little mistakes are treated as if they do.The public often considers nuclear reactors to be raging death machines. In reality, reactors like the Navyu2019s PWRs practically run themselves, and short of an entire watchteam turning ISIS, little they could do would risk harming the public. This means that youu2019ll be fighting a constant battle against complacency. You have to operate to the level of danger the public thinks exists, not the one you know exists - which makes maintaining vigilance a constant battle ofu2025 well, vigilance.Donu2019t crap on your enlisted. This is often a sentiment civilians have of military officers; that enlisted are u201clesseru201d than the officers. Enlisted may not (usually) have degrees, but theyu2019re still people, and officers often have to rely upon the enlisted - not just to get the job done, but often for knowledge and backup. Keep in mind that Enlisted are able to get jobs to do many of the same things as officers. The opposite is not true.Itu2019s still the Navy. Imagine effectively giving geniusu2019s the license to be all means of vulgar and crude, then locking them in warships for months on end, standing watch with each other for hours at at time, watching nothing happen. You get bored, fast. There are only some many random u201cHEY DID YOU KNOW THIS RANDOM USELESS FACT ABOUT OUR REACTOR PLANT?u201d questions you can ask, and reading manuals about the plant often serves better as a sedative than keeping oneu2019s mind engaged. They werenu2019t written by Brandon Sanderson or George R.R. Martin, after all. As such, when you enter the nuclear field, youu2019ll be entering a culture that is somewhere between college-level humor, middle-school-level-maturity, not-quite-MIT-level-intellect, u201980u201390s references combined with modern pop culture nerdisms, and dark humor that wouldnu2019t be able to be shown anywhere on media, all governed by a pseudo-meritocratic system with a socialist payscale, which makes for a fair bit of angst. Not to mention youu2019ve got nerds who make a fair bit of money and canu2019t spend it for half a year - meaning youu2019ll see sailors who are pro-gamers whou2019s monthly expenditures are standard bills + 30 days worth of pizza + 30 days worth of beer + $15 monthly subscription-to-this-or-that game + $$$$$$$$ monthly payment for some super expensive sports car.Everyone has priorities for you. These will rarely line up with your own priorities.Itu2019s not about the ribbons, medals, or rank. Not entirely. Rank matters - for the most part, particularly the rank of an officer (you at least have to respect them all, even if you donu2019t care about their opinion all of the time), and having anchors on your collar/rank tab/cover definitely matters (Chiefs). Otherwise, itu2019s what your qualified to do that gets you respect and authority.u00a0The only warfare pin that matters to a Nuke is the Submarine (SS) Warfare Pin. Others available to nukes are the Deterrence pin (only for SSBN sailors), Dive (submariners only, like the Subsurface) and for Surface Sailors: Surface Warfare, Air Warfare, and Information Dominance. But the Submarine Warfare Pin, affectionately know as u201cDolphinsu201d or u201cFishu201d for the Dolphin fish on the pin.(Gold for officers, silver for enlisted)Why is this one important, but the others not?For one thing, Fish take a lot of effort to get. It all goes back to that whole pseudo-meritocracy bit of the culture. Submariners need to know a crapton about the entire submarine.Deterrence patrol pin?Some donu2019t wear them because they mark them as u201cpart-time submariners.u201d SSBN crews are split into a u201cBlueu201d and a u201cGoldu201d crew, since the subs stay out so long. As far as I know, there arenu2019t really any extra requirements to get them other than to have actually been deployed on the sub during a patrol.Surface Warfare Pin?(There is a gold as well).Well, I donu2019t know how hard it is to get on u201csmallboysu201d (Destroyers, Cruisers, etc.) but on my carrier, it was about as difficult as my lowliest, easiest watchstation qualification. I put about a week of dedicated study towards getting my ESWS (Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist) pinu2025 u2025 and that was it. It was easy. It wasnu2019t anything difficult at all. Whatu2019s more, it was a requirement. Everyone had to get one by a certain date from their time on board. Why should I take pride in that? Itu2019s no longer a mark of intelligence, dedication, or work. Itu2019s just a marker of time onboard the ship, and an easy u201ccheck-in-the-box.u201d Seriously, people on my ship who didnu2019t know what significant event happened on December 7th, 1941 still had them, and yet idiots still lauded the pin as some great qualifier. We had a few non-Nukes trying to tell a Nuke that they knew more about the reactor plant than him just because they had ESWS and he did not (because he was working on qualifications that mattered. ESWS does not fit that billet). It doesnu2019t qualify you to do any extra jobs. It doesnu2019t make you look better on a resume. It garners no respect from people who matter to me, other than u201cYou did what you were told to do, so you donu2019t get an SP eval.u201dAir Warfare and Information Dominance Warfare: Letu2019s just say that despite it not mattering, Iu2019ve seen guys get made fun of for not having Surface Warfare.Not a single person at my current command has commented on the fact that I donu2019t have an Air Warfare pin on my uniform, and Iu2019ve been here more than two years.Thatu2019s all I can think of for now. Sorry for the rant at the end.Iu2019d recommend also going to an Officer Recruiter to learn more.