Theory of Petroleum Engineering Education: Big Bounce, Big Crunch, or Big Freeze? Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • Abstract Historically petroleum engineering departments have been the primary suppliers of engineering human resources to the oil and gas industry. Similar to the operators and service companies, the universities are sensitive to changes in demand. Though the asset of the petroleum engineering academia is not barrels of crude oil and cubic feet of gas, it is future professionals of different degrees (bachelor's, master's, and doctorate). In the last several years in response to rapid increase in hydrocarbon prices and unconventional production, we observed a hiring surge in the industry and subsequent agitation among engineering freshmen to choose petroleum engineering as their major. As a result, this short-lived high demand for petroleum engineering graduates created tremendous pressure on the departments causing them to expand their educational capacities. In some cases that led to doubling of the number of undergraduates in the program. Simultaneously, such dramatic expansion of the student body created a growing demand for professors. According to the most conservative estimates, there is an obvious shortage of professors of all ranks. This demand for the specialized engineering professionals occurs on the foreground of the domestic shortage of the general engineering professionals as indicated by the Labor Department.

name of conference

  • Day 2 Tue, September 29, 2015

published proceedings

  • Day 2 Tue, September 29, 2015

author list (cited authors)

  • Plaksina, T., & Gildin, E.

citation count

  • 2

complete list of authors

  • Plaksina, Tatyana||Gildin, Eduardo

publication date

  • January 2015