Oil Comp Engr
38 Years Experience
Houston, TX
Female, 60
I recently retired from a major integrated oil company after 38 years. I have degrees in Civil and Petroleum Engineering. I worked with safety, health and environmental management systems and operations in the upstream (finding and producing oil and gas) and downstream (refining, chemicals and distributions) areas. I travelled all over world, enduring good & bad business cycles and good and bad managers.
You will be at a bit of a disadvantage but, that said, the demand for petroleum engineers usually exceeds the supply and so mid size and large companies are prepared to provide some training. You can increase your odds by taking a geology course or two and taking some online or self study training. In the long run, I thimk you are better off with a broad degree like mechanical because it allows you to change industries. Have you checked the price of oil lately? It is down quite a bit and there are lits is stories in the news about how the upstream sector is cutting budgets and reducing hiring.
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Although I have a BS in Civil and did start as a drilling engineer, your chances are better with a BS in Mechanical. When I graduated (30+ years ago), petroleum engineers were in very, very short supply. Also, I had some significant summer internship experience, graduated top of my class and am female. Women engineers, while not exactly abundant these days, were very scarce 30 years ago.
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Very tough question. Petroleum engineering, historically, HAS been cyclical. When times are good, petroleum engineers command the top salaries. Right now, the price of oil has dropped below $80/bbl and some are saying that domestic spending (and thus demand for PEs) will drop. I suggest you take a look (probably on Wikipedia or SPE.org) to see how quickly oil prices can rise and fall. In bad times, other industries tend not to hire petroleum engineers because there is a perception (partly true) that they are too specialized to adapt to a general manufacturing job. On the flip side, large oil companies have extensive training programs and are geared up to train MEs, CEs, ChEs to do petroleum work. If you think that you will be at the top of your class at Texas Tech, petroleum engineering is not too much of a gamble and you will have your pick of jobs among both independent companies and major oil companies. (If AP Physics, AP Calculus, etc. come easily to you, that's a good indication that you will probably do well in college.) However, if you graduate with a 3.0 average or less in Petroleum Engineering with mediocre internships and the economy is down, you may have a tough time finding a job. I tend to be a bit risk averse and recommend to folks to stick with a broader degree (you almost can't go wrong with mechanical or chemical engineering in terms of versatility) and try for internships in the oil industry during university. You also should investigate how difficult it would be to switch into petroleum engineering during your second or third year OR possibly get a dual degree such as ME and PE if you can afford that. If you have a lot of AP courses, purusing a dual degree may be a realistic option. Definitely talk to the advisors at Texas Tech. Hopefully they won't make you select your major until after you are admitted. Best of luck to you.
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I can only address this with respect to career advancement for engineers and not other professions within oil and gas. The potential is very good, especially for those who want to pursue the management track. I pursued the technical path for most of my career so that I could have a better work / life balance. I started over 30 years ago when dual career couples had a bit harder time. My spouse and I made the conscious choice that only one of us would pursue a management track. That said, I feel that I progressed well in my career and was often a team lead or a group lead, though not a supervisor/manager. I spent the first 10 years in operations and then took advantage of an opportunity to get into an environmental group. I used my operations background to gain credibiiity with the field people that I was helping with environmental issues. I also accepted a broadening assignment to work in a refinery on environmental issues as well as a broadening assignment in a safety group that allowed me to travel extensively to get overseas experience wihtout having to move overseas. As with any industry, if you want to make it to the top ranks of management, you're going to have to work very hard and make some personal sacrifices.
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If you will post your email address, I will contact you. I don't post my personal email on this forum
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I honestly don't know very much about 3D printing so I can't answer your question.
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1. I chose engineering as a career mostly by default. I was good in math and science and LOVED solving practical problems relatively quickly. I did not like medicine, law or business school. I was lucky to have high school teachers that steered me towards engineering. I did not know excactly what I wanted to do within the field of engineering when I first entered colled.
2. Career wise, I figured out during my early college career that I wanted to work with things that I could touch, feel and see (i.e. civil engineering). Electrical engineering was too abstract for me, though I loved the math & computer engineering aspects. Chemical engineering was just a bit too complex for me (too many variables all at once). Civil engineering also had that "people" orientation that seemed to be less present in the other disciplines. Mechanical engineering was my second option if civil did not work out. When I graduated, there was a HUGE demand for engineers to do petroleum work and a degree in civil was a relatively good fit for drilling, where I started (cement design, casing design, working with geologists, doing project management / scheduling work). I started in drilling with the hope that it would work out and it did, but there was a bit of "fingers crossed" on my part at the beginning. I had several job offers and went with the company that seemed to suit my personality most closely. Over time, I moved into environmental work (which was a part of our Civil Engineering department at universtiy) as opportunity presented itself.
3) Re. the positive and negative aspects, I think I have covered this in previous posts.
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