Going nuclear
It's a good time to be studying nuclear engineering. As noted in the subhead of a recent story (subscribers only) in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "For the first time in decades, new reactors are being planned, and a new generation of engineers must be trained."
It's up to universities like UMR to do the training, and UMR is uniquely poised to do so. Unlike many universities with nuclear engineering programs, UMR is not hamstrung by what the Chronicle calls "the demise of the university-based reactor."
According to the Chronicle:
At their peak in the 1970s, over 60 small reactors dotted campuses around the country. They did not fuel dormitories or cafeterias, but were used as training tools. Only 27 operate today, a change Mr. Kadak calls "devastating."UMR's reactor is doing just fine. It's one of the centerpieces of our nuclear engineering program."It really hurts in terms of attraction of students," he says.
Shuttering reactors made sense for many institutions because nuclear engineering seemed a moribund field. Even a few years ago, high-profile universities declined to renew licenses, tantamount to shutting reactors down. Research dollars shifted to hotter fields like information systems or bioengineering.
These days, nuclear engineering is one of the hotter fields. UIMR nuclear engineering grads command some of the highest starting salaries of all UMR graduates. Last year, NucE's garnered an average starting salary of $57,800.