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.
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sure. The better the school and the better your grades, the better your chances, regardless of the degree
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I honestly don't remember studying vector calculus - it was over 35 years ago, but likely it is used in some the equations used to describe reservoir engineering phenomena.
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It would be better to know more about your background to give some good advice. For example, what was your GPA in college? What have you been doing for the past 8 years since you graduated? Have you been working? Are you willing to work in the field? You might try looking for a position at one of the service companies (Halliburton, Schlumberger, etc) to work out in the field as a mudlogger or a wireline technician and then try to work your way up. Having skills in AutoCad won't hurt but I'm not aware of many people in my field that are using that on a daily basis. If you can afford it, you might want to consider pursuing a graduate engineering degree in Mechanical or Chemical. That might get you some opportunities for a summer internship. Depending on where you live, another avenue is to contact your local Society of Petroleum Engineers chapter. Get involved in some of their activities - volunteer to help at meetings and workshops and perhaps you will make some connections there. Write me back if you want to provide more details about your GPA and what you've been doing since you graduated.
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Wish I could help you more. Hopefully you can find a mentor through your SPE section. Another suggestion is to contact SPE directly to see if they have a mentor program if the section doesn't work out for you.
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I suggest you contact: The Society of Petroleum Engineers, Los Angeles chapter, the Society of Women Engineers, Los Angeles chapter and universities in and around LA that have engineering schools (UCLA, Cal Tech, USC, Cal Polly Pomona, Harvey Mudd College) and see if there are any engineering alumni willing to do this. I think you will increase your chance of success if you try to find an engineer who works in the petroleum industry (vs. trying to meet with someone that has a petroleum engineering degree). You could also try calling oil companies who have offices in LA. Here's one resource I found: http://www.icc.org/gas-oil-companies/california/los-angeles.htm
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There aren't too many schools that offer Petroleum Engineering. The top ones, in my opinion, are University of Texas, Colorado School of Mines, Penn State, LSU, Stanford, Oklahoma, Texas A&M. There are probably ~ 100 schools or more that offer Chemical Engineering. Some of the top ones are those above plus Univ of Minnesota, Washington Univ in St. Louis, Ohio State, Univ of Michigan.
ABET is the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. They certify that Engineering schools meet certain criteria. You only want to attend an ABET accredited school if you plan to practice engineering because companies will know that you have mastered certain subjects. Most schools that offer engineering ARE accredited, but a few are not. (Princeton university, for example, was NOT accredited for chemical engineering back in the 1980's but probably is now). In addition, there are new schools that are not accredited until they have been in existence for a few years. One that springs to mind is Olin College. It is now accredited but the first few years it was not, so it was a leap of faith for those first few classes of students. They are taking a very innovative approach to teaching engineering - my daughter visited and considered attending. Olin is very intent on keeping tuition affordable and getting internships for students. Cooper Union is another terrific engineering school in NYC that has the same mission. It has probably changed, but when I was in high school, IF you could get in to Cooper Union, it was free!
SPE is the Society of Petroleum Engineers. They are the technical society for practicing PE's and for students. There are similar organizations for Civil, Chemical, etc. Don't forget to check out the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - they offer scholarships for all disciplines. There is also NSBE (for African Americans), SHPE (Hispanic) and AISES (Indian Americans). All are working to encourage under-represented minorities to pursue a career in STEM.Good luck to you!
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