I don’t know much about this field, and had a few questions. Are there many schools that offer an actual major in Petroleum engineering? Also, what would the curriculum in a seemingly very specific field such as this look like?
I am a petroleum engineering major at Penn State. There aren’t a lot of schools that offer it. The ones I know of that offer a full undergraduate degree in the field are Penn State, Stanford, UT Austin, Texas A&M, LSU, Oklahoma, Marietta, and Colorado School of Mines. I’m sure there are others but these are the ones I know off the top of my head. Pitt and USC offer concentrations in it that are done through chemical engineering. The first two years are similar to other engineering majors. Calc 1, 2, 3, differential equations, general chemistry, and a lot of physics. The degree also requires an understanding of geology so you will take classes in that. After those you start to get into your petroleum eng classes. Rock and fluid properties, reservoir and drilling engineering, pet eng design and so on.
https://earth.stanford.edu/departments/ere/academics/undergraduate-program/bs-coterm-program
Here’s the link to the undergraduate program and course list at Stanford.