Want a Guaranteed Job After College? Study This

Fiscal Times ^ | 01/20/2012 | Kirsten Hayes

[SeekAndFind]

While millions of college grads look forlornly into the worst U.S. job market in decades, Emily Woner pretty much guaranteed herself one of America's best-paid post-graduate jobs before she ever set foot on campus.

Spurred by an early interest in following her father's footsteps into the oil sector, Woner secured a post-high school internship with Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp.

After summers spent riding seismic trucks in the Barnett shale, designing water pipelines in east Texas and helping model oil reservoirs in Wyoming, she's now a 22-year-old senior at the University of Tulsa waiting to take a job in one the country's most sought-after professions: petroleum engineering.

"I'm really lucky. In my class, a lot of us are already committed to companies," Woner said.

Luck has little to do with it. Energy companies are racing to exploit America's vast shale gas and oil fields, the increasing discoveries of which has upended markets and sparked the biggest drilling boom in generations.

While Wall Street slashes the kind of banking and trading positions that were once the most coveted for top graduates, energy firms can't hire fast enough for the technical jobs that have been all but overlooked for a generation.

The shale boom has run into many obstacles: environmental concerns from earthquakes to water safety, a lack of needed materials, and logistical bottlenecks.

But the shortage of specialty engineers may prove one of the most vexing. Poaching is rife and supplies are short, putting a premium on industry veterans who know how to get the most value out of wells that can cost tens of millions of dollars to drill.

Oil companies have seen the squeeze coming for years, and -- to a degree -- the job market has responded. Bachelor's degrees in petroleum engineering trebled to over 750 since 2001.

But industry officials and analysts say it is likely still not enough for companies to maintain their ambitious growth in North American shale oil plays, Canada's oil sands, deepwater offshore Brazil, post-war Iraq and other frontiers.

At least 40 percent of the globe's petroleum engineers are expected to retire in the coming decade, according to top industry recruiters. A generation lost to the 1980s oil bust leaves a thin cadre of mid-career professionals to take up the slack until incoming 20-somethings get up to speed.

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[Antoninus II]

Duh!!

[central_va]

The current crop of unemployed graduates may be unemployed because they studied history or Ethnic Women’s Literature,

There is never a good time to study literature in college. That is a hobby not a career.

[FreedomPoster]

Regarding the 80s oil bust - in the Winter of ‘82 I had an offer letter for $29.9k/yr from Exxon to go to Houston, a princely sum for a wet behind the ears newly-graduated engineer in those days.

Best job I never took. I got a Graduate Research Assitanceship and stayed for a Masters degree. Later that Summer/Fall, the oil bust hit. I’d have been sitting in Houston with an apartment lease and no job, and would have had to break the lease and scramble for a job somewhere.

[ottbmare]

There is never a good time to study literature in college. That is a hobby not a career.

You are making the assumption that colleges and universities are only trade schools, rather than institutions to advance the sciences and preserve Western Civilization. It was only recently that we began to regard them as places to acquire job skills. From roughly 1088, when the University of Bologna was founded, until about 35 years ago, they were intended to develop the intellect, not to guarantee a job.