As you would expect, the NRC employs technical staff in various engineering and science fields, from materials engineering to hydrology. We frequently recruit at colleges and universities to publicize our opportunities and find talented students who can become the nuclear professionals of tomorrow. Occasionally, our outreach extends to high-school and middle-school students, who may not have considered careers in our field but still have plenty of time to pursue that track.Last month, the NRC participated in the University of Maryland’s Women in Engineering DREAM Conference. “DREAM,” which stands for Developing Revolutionary Engineers and Mentors, was a free one-day event attended by hundreds of local high-school students and their parents.
The participants could choose from a number of exciting activities, including panel discussions by current students and engineering professionals, a presentation on the university’s sustainable WaterShed house, and planning sessions on college applications and financial aid. They also heard a motivational talk during lunch from a Northrop Grumman manager who fought to create a technical career for herself, starting from the moment her school administration said she had to take home economics instead of technical drawing.
Three NRC volunteers were active participants in this event. Theresa Clark of the Office of New Reactors — a University of Maryland (UMD) graduate in materials science and engineering — spoke about her NRC experience as part of a “DREAM Jobs” panel in the morning. The students and parents asked great questions about fun parts of the panelists’ jobs, how internships play a role in finding a career path, and whether the panelists had created a good balance between work and family life.
In the afternoon, I joined Suzanne Schroer of the Office of New Reactors (also pursuing a master’s degree in reliability engineering at UMD) at an information fair for the participants. For the better part of an hour, we told students what the NRC does, fielded questions, and gave out brochures and other materials to promote careers at the NRC.
Though these students still have years of education ahead of them, we hope that outreach opportunities like this one will help develop a future generation of technical professionals. We look forward to seeing some of them apply to NRC jobs in the future!
Kim English Office of Human Resources
U.S. NRC Blog 
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nice job Theresa Clark.
Thanks for the information,the details about the university is very informative for us,Students will surely get a great idea about their career prospective.
I personally think it’s great to present students with a wide variety of paths to choose from. I remember being a student and being very confused about what I wanted to do with my life. It’s great for kids to be able to see everything they can do. Maybe they want to be an engineer, maybe they want to be a carpenter. Either way, at least they can see their options. Keep up the good work.
Being a Engineer is a great thing but a very hard to do
Gov’t should continue to endorse young people to become a nuclear engineers because no mater what everybody says about nuclear energy being bad for the enviroment, it will still remain the most efficient and important way for producing energy in the next couple of decades.
I just don’t understand the American educational system. In any normal R&D educational system Ms Clark would be working right now as partime engineering apprentice at an engineering firm developing nuclear rocket engines for an expanding space program.
But in the real world students are strapped with huge mounds of educational debit that sap the financial resources of their family while Gov’t and there crony businesses buddies are allowed to create fraud and thieve are rewarded.
Sorry this is our upside down world.