What is nuclear engineering? Learn about the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University and hear directly from a student in the program.
Kaya Mariello:
One of the things that I love about nuclear engineering is it's a really specific field, but you can go into many different applications. Something that I particularly love is I've been able to do an internship in the medical field with a nuclear engineering major. Radiation is now cutting edge in the medical field. It's something that we don't normally think of, but when you talk about cancer, and you talk about diseases and treatment, it's radiation - it's nuclear engineering at work. Nuclear engineering is limitless. I've also been able to do an internship in like a health physics field working on detectors and all different types of like very specific nuclear engineering applications. And so I really think nuclear engineering allows lots of different disciplines and specifications that you wouldn't normally think of when you think nuclear engineering. Howdy y'all, my name is Kaya Mariello, and I'm a nuclear engineering major at Texas A&M University.
Laura Simmons:
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University is the largest program of its kind in the United States with a current enrollment of 292 undergraduate and 141 graduate students. We have a high faculty to student ratio that allows us to offer relatively small class sizes and mentor groups that promote a strong sense of family within the department. We are also the only university with two research reactors and our state of the art laboratories and facilities will ensure that you have the tools needed to develop the skills necessary for the wide ranging applications of nuclear science and engineering. We are recognized as perhaps one of the most challenging majors on campus and equally one of the most rewarding. Graduates from our department are some of the most recruited students at Texas A&M because of the preparation they have both inside and outside of the classroom.
Valentina Alarcon:
My name is Valentina Alarcon, and I'm part of the nuclear engineering department of Texas A&M. I always say it chose me instead of me choosing nuclear engineering. I originally came into A&M with the idea of being a mechanical engineer, and I was just fixated on that. Through ETAM actually, we get to choose three possibilities of engineering departments. And one of them that I chose was nuclear, and I chose it very randomly. But I entered a speech by given by Dr. Lin Shao, from the engineering department and the way he spoke about nuclear engineering and the applications of it, and the future prospects of it just really intrigued me. I think that's what really made me change from mechanical to nuclear, and I've been so happy I made that choice ever since. And I think all of that kind of came together during my first semester in nuclear engineering. I took just nuclear 101. And I think the particle physics of it really, it just blew my mind. A lot of things that we just don't know about - that type of physics - and their research in it, again, is just amazing to me.
Laura Simmons:
Learn more about the nuclear engineering department by visiting engineering.tamu.edu/nuclear