Nuclear Education

Swedish universities provide high quality education within the broader subject area of energy and nuclear energy. Students from all educational levels have the option of enrolling either in individual courses or to comprehensive educational programmes. Although many universities provide some courses on the topic of nuclear energy, the heavy lifting is done by three universities in particular - KTH, Uppsala University and Chalmers.

Everyone has their own reasons for choosing to educate themselves within the field of nuclear energy. For some it’s curiosity, for some it’s a passion, for some it’s a natural choice given where they live or what their families work with. According to estimations, over 20,000 people in Sweden are directly employed by the nuclear power industry. Only a fraction of them are physicists, but most of them have a good working knowledge of the principles of generating electricity from nuclear fuel.

Studying nuclear energy will not lock you into a certain career path for the rest of your life, quite the opposite. Student follow-up shows that graduates from this field find it easy to get work, within or outside nuclear power generation. Nuclear engineering studies mainly teach you the fundamentals of natural sciences; how to solve complex problems while combining technical, societal and leadership aspects; how to quickly feel comfortable around a variety of operational systems, simulation tools and measurement equipment; and how to communicate high quality, fact-checked and logical information. These tend to be the skills that many employers look for in their new recruits.