<p>I have been in school a year now, and look to transfer next year to a 4 yr college. I have a 4.0 gpa and have worked in the oilfield as a mechanic for 7 yrs, was in the Navy as a mechanic. I would like to know would Mechanical Engineering or Petroleum Engineering be a good degree considering my age of 34 </p>
<p>Any advice or direction you can give me would be appreciated
Thank You</p>
<p>Well what do you want to do with your degree? Those majors are very different.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that many petroleum engineers work long, hard hours, so if you want to perhaps start a family before too long, you may want to consider that.</p>
<p>go for it "kid’, you are still plenty young</p>
<p>Meh, I’m 34 as well pursuing a mechanical engineering degree (in my second year, third year overall as I’m a part-time student). Either degree will be good, but as boneh3ad said, you will have to take into consideration the weird hours and job locations of a petroleum engineer. Either way you choose, good luck!</p>
<p>Is it me, or is there some perception that engineering, and perhaps math/science, may only be pursued before age =< 22? I have never heard anyone being discouraged from pursuing history, medicine, law, or business because of age.</p>
<p>^ I guess maybe the fear is that by the time you get your degree, employers will not want to hire you, being in your late 30’s and over the hill (I keed). Instead, they will favor the younger new grads. I say, if you do well in school and have work experience, you will be able to get your foot in the door and show what you can do. If you are good at what you do, employers won’t care if you are older.</p>
<p>I already have a family of 4, kids are 12 and 7 so …
I made 55k as a mechanic, and would not want to go to school for 4 years and try to provide better for my family and only make 65k as a Mechanical engineer. so thats why I think I would rather go for the Petroleum and try to make the money. I know money is not everything, but really what are we working for…</p>
<p>but shawnlowrey, please consider the fact that the Petroleum engineering job might be in areas around the world that you would not like to raise your children in.</p>
<p>I’m 48, and I think of anyone in their 30s as being a kid. I don’t think employers will think negatively of you because of your age. Actually, I think it would work in your favor. My husband and I have both worked with kids in their 20s who were really immature and whose main thought during the day was what they’d be doing after work.</p>
<p>Good point John, I just thought that when I went to those places it was on a rotation like one month on, one off. so my family could live where they are now, and I would be home 6 months of the year. is this not correct?</p>
<p>mainlong, can you imagine the appeal that a mid '30s Petroleum Engineer would have after showing 7 years of experience in the oil well as a mechanic?</p>
<p>he would be highly sought after</p>
<p>shawn, a month at work and a month at home would be a rough life and tough to raise your children.</p>
<p>The time away is not something that I look forward to, in fact it ways on the decision a lot. I just think that the sacrifice would be made up for by the better quality of life while I’m home. we would be able to do things we can’t now, The feeling of when I’m home will be great, to all of us. and the down side is when I’m away it will be hard on all of us and most of all me. I have not made up my mind. if I could make the same kind of money here I would</p>
<p>Go for what you like to do. You should know by now if you want to stay in the oilfields or go on to some other kind of engineering. BTW, not all petroleum engineers work in the field. I have a friend from college who designs oil drilling equipment and lives in Houston. He graduated from Rice, obviously, but I can’t remember what field of engineering he studied. Rice places a lot of engineers in the oil industry.</p>
<p>Speaking as someone who was still a “kid” more recently than seemingly any of you guys, I would say that had my dad not been home for 6 months of the year, my childhood would have been totally different. I personally wouldn’t trade my dad being gone for 6 months per year for our family having a little more money. I value all the little league games and that sort of things way too much. Just food for thought from a kid’s perspective.</p>
<p>I’ll second boneh3ad, as I’m still considered a “kid” by most (I’m 20).</p>
<p>My dad travelled a ton for work. He’d be gone for a month at a time occasionally. At one point I think he was away for 3/4 months.
I would have traded any of my possessions in a heartbeat for my dad to not travel for work like he did.</p>
<p>It’s totally not worth the strain you’d put on your family. I know a ton of people who work offshore (or used to? yay bp spill messing everything up) since I live in the gulf, and not one of them was still married. It pretty much destroyed their marriage. And yes, it was the standard 3 weeks on/ 3 weeks off.</p>
<p>For some reason, this forum seems to think the only jobs for Pet E’s are on rotational assignments in some far away place. I would say there are more jobs that are office based, domestic, or field based on a 5 day/week schedule. </p>
<p>Plus, a decent drilling engineer with a few years of well site experience is easily employed in an office job in the U.S.</p>
<p>And for the original poster, you are not at all too old to be getting an engineering degree. Especially with already having 7 years of mechanic experience in the patch.</p>
<p>There ARE plenty of office jobs for petroleum engineers… but those jos aren’t generally going to start out paying as high because they are much less undesirable than th field jobs (at least from what I have seen, which is admittedly limited). At that point, the difference in salary with him doing PetE vs. MechE are less important.</p>
<p>Reservoir Petroleum Engineers make just as much as Drilling or Production engineers yet it is an office job. Reservoir Engineers work in Houston, Anchorge ects… They work a normal 40 hour work week and make about as much as a drilling field engineer.</p>
<p>Petroleum engineers can still live normal lives and still make much more than the average engineer.</p>
<p>On average how much do Reservoir Engineer’s make, and what exactly do they do?</p>