Driving under the high tension lines just inside the gates of the power plant was as ‘energizing’ as it was motivational for 18 College of Southern Maryland (CSM) students arriving for their first day of hands-on training at the Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, L (CENG) plant in Calvert County.
The students, many completing their first year of CSM’s Nuclear Engineering Technology: Instrumentation and Control (NET) associate’s degree program, spent the summer connecting their classroom instruction at CSM’s Center for Nuclear Energy Training in Prince Frederick to training experiences inside a working nuclear facility.
Over the six-week summer cooperative education/internship program, students toured the CENG Calvert Cliffs facility, attended lectures and courses led by CENG instructors, and rotated through electrical and mechanical maintenance, instrumentation and control, chemistry and radiation protection systems to get a flavor of the work conducted in those shops. During the final two weeks of the program, students chose their preferred field among the systems shops and were matched with CENG mentors who they accompanied on job assignments. “You will get a feel for not only the equipment but the organization and procedures,” CENG Supervisor of Technical Training Al Fissel told students.
Tara Wille, a Midwesterner who moved to Calvert County last winter to begin the NET program, said that CSM’s NET program is a dream come true for her. “I’ve been fascinated by nuclear energy since the seventh grade—something about the study of radiation, the core and the chemistry,” she said, adding that she didn’t initially pursue nuclear energy studies because there were no power plants in her area.
With an associate of science degree, Wille had just begun a bachelor’s degree program in geology at Colorado State University when she learned of the NET program from CSM Board of Trustees Member Julie Sickle, a Maryland cousin.
