<p>Hey everyone!
I am a senior in high school planning on going to the University of Texas at Austin next year. I have been debating whether to go into either chemical engineering or petroleum engineering. The two appeal to me as they both have their own pros and cons. I understand that they are lucrative careers, but to be honest I don't care much about the amount I make, but instead how much I will be enjoying the career in ten or twenty years.
The pro for chemical engineering is that it is a broad field and if I ever change my mind about working with petroleum then I have a variety of options.
The con for it is that when working with petroleum you will most likely be able to get only downstream jobs.</p>
<p>The pro for petroleum engineering is that it seems a bit exciting to have an upstream job and be able to travel the world.
The con, however, is that I can't see myself having to travel around for all of my career and it is not much of a broad field.</p>
<p>I would really appreciate it if anyone could possibly give me more information about chemical and petroleum engineering and hopefully help me make my decision.
Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, I would like to work with petroleum either way. But I’ve heard chemical engineers don’t get upstream jobs as petroleum engineers do, so i’m kind of leaning towards petroleum engineering. I guess my questions really are what is the future of petroleum engineers and what is the life of a petroE like? (how long are they usually traveling and how long are they home?)</p>
<p>I’ve heard from recruiters (Chevron, BP) that the reason petroleum engineer salaries are so high is because they are always working at oil rigs far away from their homes, and that they job is very stressful. One recruiter even told me that you shouldn’t bank on having a family if you do petroleum engineering, because you will be away from home during most of the week.</p>
<p>His words, not mine. So please dont bash me.</p>
<p>i won’t bash you, don’t worry lol. i just wanted to know how it really was because i keep hearing different things from different people about the traveling part of petroEng. traveling around the world is appealing and sounds exciting, but i don’t know if i could do that for a long time.</p>
<p>Chemical Engineering would probably open more doors in different industries. For instance, you can go from defense to food products.
Petroleum Engineering seems more specific, but probably looks better on your resume when applying for petroleum jobs.</p>
<p>If you’re dedicated to become a petroleum engineer, pick Petroleum Engineering. If you want to go into another industry relating to chemE, but not certain about pretroleum, go for Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>This is just my opinion, I’m not a chemE or petrE major.</p>