Depending on his exact position and the size of the projects, he may spend a number years living 4 month here, 9 months there, a year the next place. I was in the construction industry most of my career as a CPA and the guys that ran the project were basically nomads.
Yep, that was my buddy's experience. Was in Tucson for a while for a couple of projects. Then his company was expanding into CA, and he ended up on the central coast for a while for a big project. He got lucky getting moved down to San Diego for several years, but at least one project he would leave San Diego early every Monday morning to drive north of LA to the job site, stay in a hotel all week, and drive back on Friday. I'm guessing that if he hadn't been married, he'd have just said screw it and moved up there for the project.
Years ago, I asked about NucE. I was told that it was kind of a dying field, that very very few new reactors (zero for ~30 years) would be built and that they were closing more and more plants all over. What I was told is that it would be better to have a different degree, like MechE or ChemE, and then try to get into the Nuclear business, than have a NucE, and try to get into another field like ChemE.
It seems like the world is moving towards a revival of nuclear power. That said it seems like a stable but low-employment field compared to things like EE.
BLS projects a 1% decline over the next decade in employment, but with continual new jobs being created by older workers retiring out of the field.
I'm not sure it would have been what I recommend, but it's his life and his decision. If I thought it was an objectively bad idea, I'd tell him. But honestly, the schools he's looking at are going to have amazing engineering programs in the other disciplines, as well as in the hard sciences, so if he gets there and realizes it's not the right major for him, he should be able to swap into something else pretty easily.
