“HOT JOB! Nuclear Radiation Students Hired Before They Graduate” |
| HOT JOB! Nuclear Radiation Students Hired Before They Graduate Posted: 10 Dec 2010 09:13 AM PST AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA -- This year some college students are unwrapping jobs for Christmas. The law of supply and demand is practically placing Aiken Technical College students in well-paying jobs before they even graduate. The secret: They're majoring in Nuclear Radiation. It's A growing career field in need of knowledgeable, well trained workers. And the pay is not bad either. It's all about "green energy." The federal government is pushing nuclear facilities to find a new source for green energy and with nearly 50-percent of that work force retiring in the next few years, the need for finding students with radiation protection skills is a must. Instructor David Deal is showing students how to find radiation. "First I'd have him remove his shirt; then we'd check him again," says Deal to one of his students. Deal says the job of a radiation protection technician is to keep the general public, coworkers and the environment safe from harmful amounts of radiation. The students are in an Associates Degree Program specializing in Radiation Technology Protection. After they've finished their two years, most are placed in a job at a nuclear power facility. "Our last graduating class had an over 90 percent placement rate. That means out of 21 students, 18 are now employed," says Deal. In a follow-up email, Deal specified: "Savannah River Site (a DOE facility) is where most of our students have found employment. We do have two students in power plants (one at the VC Summer (SCANA) plant outside of Columbia, SC and one at the River Bend Station (ENTERGY) near Baton Rouge, LA.). We also have one graduate employed at a nuclear related-service contractor (UNITECH) in Barnwell, SC. We are excited about the diverse nature of the locations where our graduates have gone to work because we have intentionally designed the program to equip the students to be employable in ANY field employing radiation protection technicians." First-year student Devin Lucas says he enrolled so he could get a reliable job in a growing field. "It makes me feel good to know that a bunch of my buddies went to a four year college (and) I'll have a job before them," says Lucas. Deal says the job openings in nuclear energy come from a high demand and a low supply of workers. "There's an effort underway to revamp out nuclear power so we can move away from coal and oil," says Deal. In the next two years, 50-percent of the nuclear energy workforce will retire. Meanwhile, energy facilities like Plant Vogtle and Savannah River Site plan to expand. "That's why we've been so successful," says Deal. "I strongly recommend this program," says Lucas. As nuclear power facilities work towards finding clean energy, these are the people who are going to keep us safe. As for salary, it's pretty decent. Most Protection Radiation Technicians start out with a pay between 15-and-18 dollars per hour. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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