Petroleum Engineering: Questions!

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Well, I am 34, I have a B.S in Economics and I am starting PE at the University of Kansas- Fall 2012. I am going into this with very realistic expectations and PE is the only area of engineering that truly interests me.</p>

<p>I did some research on the KU PE Department and it seems average but decent, most of the big names recruit on campus (Exxon, Halliburton, Conoco Phillips, etc) as well as smaller energy companies.</p>

<p>I am not expecting to make 80K after graduation or work for big oil but I really wanted to have a job lined up before graduation. How hard was it for you to find your first internship?</p>

<p>One of the first things I am going to do is join the local SPE chapter and try to be as involved as possible, I am very passionate about the energy sector, so I really want to learn as much as I can.</p>

<p>I was wondering if my background in Economics would be helpful and attractive to employers when trying to land my first job? </p>

<p>Also, I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese( not sure if this would set me apart in any way?)</p>

<p>I am assuming that there is not a lot of minorities in PE, and although I never had to pull the race card to get anywhere in life, I was wondering if this would be another factor to my advantage?</p>

<p>I really appreciate some feedback, if you don't understand much about PE, I don't think adding your two cents would do us any good, i.e "Oil will be gone in 10 years and you will not have a job" or "It is a very dangerous job"</p>

<p>Thanks! :)</p>

2

<p>Applied for and/or handed out 30 resumes, got 18 interviews with 3 offers(still haven’t heard back from a few companies).</p>

<p>As soon as you can go to the career center and have them look over your resume. Typically, they get feedback from companies about what they like and don’t like to see on resumes. I treated it like a job and did research on every company before going to talk to them at career day. One thing I heard over and over was that companies hate it when a student comes up to them and says, “what do you do?”. I did this as a sophomore with zero oil and gas experience.</p>