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Credit: Abdulla Alhajri, Carolyn Coyle, Pablo Ducru, AS.

Nuclear Reactor Engineering

First Part:

1. Understand how your project contributes to the greater understanding of "science".  What can people outside of nuclear engineering learn from this?

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3. Practice practice practice.  In front of the committee, you get flustered.  Helps to really know your presentation.  

Second Part:

1. Understand reactor systems.  Have at least a surface knowledge of all the different Gen III, Gen III+, and even Gen IV reactors.  They might ask you to compare different ones so need to know general pressures, temperatures, coolants, etc for each.  
2. Don't focus on derivations or long math problems.  Now, this is from only 1 exam, but they only asked for one line formulas that we memorized.  Beyond mentioning those the exam was mostly qualitative.

Nuclear Reactor Physics

Overall

I studied like I study for everything ; be honest with yourself : if you do no know how to prove everything you say (or are absolutely confident on its veracity) that means you are not trustworthy. Can you bear with the responsibility of the failure of the future on Nuclear Industry because you failed to be proficient enough? So if you are not willing to trust yourself to be autonomous, honest and reliable, how can you expect others to honestly trust you ? If you feel you cannot trust yourself, that simply means you are not ready yet, and that is good because it would be bad if you were to pass and not be proficient. So just know the science with depth and confidence, and you shall do fine.

Sample paper: Pablo Ducru (May 2015): Pablo.pdf

First Part:

One response:

  • Prepare slides keeping in mind half of the committee is out of your field. 
  • Practice with students from and out of reactor physics.
  • Don't try to present everything. Present what the committee must understand and present what would lead to questions you like. 
  • Communication lab is helpful. 

Another response:

  •  Be honest about what is your contribution and what is not, as well as on the impact and consequences of such work. 
  •  The first questions will be the obvious questions that are posed by your research: if you had not though about it, you have not though well about your research. 
  •  The other questions will be going a bit further, trying to make links with other areas of the field, to see how much you know. Again, if you know the science, you will come-up with good solutions, and if you do not know, just be honest.

Second Part:

Based on two 2015 quals, it seems Chapter 9 of Handbook_of_Nuclear_Engineering is the bible. 

It is easy: if you know neutronics well, you will succeed. If not, you will not. 

I personally worked on my own, without class material, on all the essential aspects of neutronics carried out in the program. I think that is the best way to be honest with yourself.

Nuclear Materials

The main thing that I found helpful was the practice oral exams. Other grad students suggested that I do two or three practice orals, but in my opinion, with the new system their is no reason not to have four or five. I had two practices where I was given an unprepared questions, but I also had three opportunities to present my presentation and get asked on them, to simulate the first half. And finally, I got a full practice oral where I simulated both halves of the exam.

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