Is petroleum engineering a bad major to choose?
The US Government has been talking about alternative fuels ever since the Oil Crisis of the 1970’s and not much has been done since then. I don’t really know if all this talk about alternative fuels is real now or not. As a Metallurgical Engineer, I understand the pros and cons of being in a specialized engineering field. The last 5 or 6 years in the Steel industry has been pretty good, but I do understand that it can go bad as quickly as it took off. Specialized engineering degrees generally offer higher salaries than more general engineering disciplines such as ME’s or Civil’s, but your job choices are much narrower. And if your chosen field has a downturn, it can become very difficult to find a job at all when you are done with school. I graduated in 2001, right before 9/11. I had many friends that graduated in the 2 semesters after I did, and there was ZERO job market for them. Alot of them stayed in school to get a Master’s. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad choice, but beware
