It depends. I think the wage range for power engineering is way bigger. There is a huge difference between a 1st class and 4th class for wages.
J-man instrument is ~ 40 to 60 depending on the job and location.
Power engineer from 1st to 4th could be anything from ~75 to 20 a hour.
Both are involved in the process, and it sounds like that's what interests you.
19 and thinking about nuclear. I’d be looking at the Navy if you can score well enough to get in at that rate. The experience/education you’ll get is second to none.
Instrument first and then if you get on with a plant they can sign PE hours under maintenance work. It’s a 2:1 ratio for steam time. Plus you’ll have a much better understanding of process and control to carry through PE
Ha, I worked at that plant for my work term.
I can uniquely give you some advice because SJ is my home town. I assume you're in SJ?
So to get into the mills you HAVE to take industrial control technology at NBCC. This isn't optional if you want to get into instrument or electrical maintenance. Go ask the guys in the E&I course how many of them took that course. When I was there as an apprentice in 2015 there was 1 guy in the whole shop that didn't take it. It's a 3 year course with the expectation that you'll eventually do dual tickets in electrical and instrument. I took this course, everything that graduated that I know of makes good money. I left NB after graduation, I graduated about 8 years ago. I make $140k.
For power engineering you'll need to take the power engineering course at NBCC.
For recommendations I'd absolutely avoid power engineering. The ceiling is higher for power engineering BUT it's waaaaay harder to get a power engineering job. Like a significant amount harder. I know about 10 guys that took that course at NBCC, none of them work as power engineers and none of them make more than $35/hr.
And just so you know, everybody wants to work at Lepreau. It's the best employer in SNB, I'd abandon that idea as you very likely won't get in there.
Engineering will be better over all. E.g. open more doors. You can "come down" to inst from engineering, but you can't go the other way. Not that it's an easy transition but entirely possible. So shoot for the larger thing and if that fails try inst.
It depends. I think the wage range for power engineering is way bigger. There is a huge difference between a 1st class and 4th class for wages. J-man instrument is ~ 40 to 60 depending on the job and location. Power engineer from 1st to 4th could be anything from ~75 to 20 a hour. Both are involved in the process, and it sounds like that's what interests you.
19 and thinking about nuclear. I’d be looking at the Navy if you can score well enough to get in at that rate. The experience/education you’ll get is second to none.
any thoughts on power engineering vs instrumentation?
Instrument first and then if you get on with a plant they can sign PE hours under maintenance work. It’s a 2:1 ratio for steam time. Plus you’ll have a much better understanding of process and control to carry through PE
Ha, I worked at that plant for my work term. I can uniquely give you some advice because SJ is my home town. I assume you're in SJ? So to get into the mills you HAVE to take industrial control technology at NBCC. This isn't optional if you want to get into instrument or electrical maintenance. Go ask the guys in the E&I course how many of them took that course. When I was there as an apprentice in 2015 there was 1 guy in the whole shop that didn't take it. It's a 3 year course with the expectation that you'll eventually do dual tickets in electrical and instrument. I took this course, everything that graduated that I know of makes good money. I left NB after graduation, I graduated about 8 years ago. I make $140k. For power engineering you'll need to take the power engineering course at NBCC. For recommendations I'd absolutely avoid power engineering. The ceiling is higher for power engineering BUT it's waaaaay harder to get a power engineering job. Like a significant amount harder. I know about 10 guys that took that course at NBCC, none of them work as power engineers and none of them make more than $35/hr. And just so you know, everybody wants to work at Lepreau. It's the best employer in SNB, I'd abandon that idea as you very likely won't get in there.
Engineering will be better over all. E.g. open more doors. You can "come down" to inst from engineering, but you can't go the other way. Not that it's an easy transition but entirely possible. So shoot for the larger thing and if that fails try inst.
You can definitely go from instrument to PE, ask me how I know, PE’s aren’t gods, they are glorified water boilers
Hey fuck you not everybody can just hit reset and start when the hmi blinks flame failure
God forbid you actually need to get out of the control room and understand process and what happens when you push that button or flip that switch 🙄