Petroleum jobs are highly correlated to the price per barrel of oil. The more it is, the more it makes sense to go get it. It would be interesting if @CU123 could look up the historical price per barrel when each of his children graduated in order to give you some context. Brent Crude was well over $100 in 2014. Now it’s half that. Not long ago it was threatening $20. Not only were grads not getting $100k jobs, people with $100k jobs were losing them. Your timing could be perfect, as prices are rising again. You’d better be prepared for wild volatility in the job market though if you choose that field. It makes aerospace look stable.
Yes timing is critical for PE. The price needs to stay above $50 barrel for the job market to stay healthy.
My husband is an engineer in oil and gas but not a petroleum engineer. From his experience and knowledge I would never go into that major. Yes, it pays exceptionally well when oil is high but wow, when it crashes it’s bad. When oil was $20 there were massive layoffs and the petroleum engineers are the first to go and last to get hired back. During the last crash we met a laid off petroleum engineer who was working in the paint department at Lowe’s as he could literally not get a job even overseas. I’d sooner go into chemical engineering as companies still need to maintain and run operations even when they are not exploring for new oil.