Petroleum Engineering Education in the Year 2000

Abstract

Petroleum engineering education is tied directly to the needs of the drilling and production sectors of the petroleum industry. The demand for petroleum engineering graduates has experienced the same boom-and-bust cycles as the petroleum industry. Since 1956, undergraduate petroleum engineering enrollments have been as low as 1,000 and as high as 10,000. These extreme fluctuations in enrollment have caused severe problems for petroleum educational programs. The article describes undergraduate petroleum engineering programs, effects of new technology and new areas of emphasis in the petroleum engineering curricula.