Best Petroleum Schools 2

[Jason1970]

What are the best petroleum colleges you've attended or you know about?

Petroleum-Schools.com ranks these schools as the top five:

1. Texas A & M University College Station
2. The University of Texas Austin
3. Texas Tech University
4. Colorado School of Mines
5. University of Oklahoma Norman

Would you agree with these ranking and what are the best petroleum schools in your opinion?

 

[DubMac]

Certainly have the first one right!

Tulsa, LSU, and Stanford ain't bad either.

It also depends on what field you want to specialize in. TAMU has always been reservoir school. UTexas more of a production school.

 

[zdas04]

I agree with Jason1970's list. I would add the first two on DubMac's list, but I've had employees from Stanford and none of them came close to the worst I've ever seen from A&M. I've seen great facilities engineers from West Point and Annapolis as well, but not so much PetEng, could be because they were older by the time they got to industry, but they've all been a cut above.

Everything we're talking about is U.S. I've seen good PetEng from University of Edmonton and University of Melbourne as well. I think the top 5 above is really the top 5 in the world (Texas Tech deserved #3 when Jim Lea was running the program, but when he left I'd call it #5 or 6 with Tulsa as #6 or 5).

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[DubMac]

I've never known any PetE from Stanford, just heard it was a good one somewhere and the school has always impressed me. Maybe it's just the scenery out there.

When I was at TAMU we had a kid transfer into PetE Dept. from MIT's ME Dept. and were so impressed that he would choose A&M. I remember he complained there was way too much homework and the professors were too picky; making us take answers out to 3 and 4 decimal places. I'll never forget him saying: " a real university is more concerned with thinking processes rather than getting the actual numbers right". He flunked out; didn't make it through the second semester. Have never been impressed with MIT since then.

 

[zdas04]

I've had the same experience with MIT (and Cal Tech for that matter) as you have. I've never been sure that you got adequate bang for your buck. A guy in my youngest son's high school class got a Computer Science BS from MIT and now (6 years later) he is making $10/hour on Best Buy's Geek Squad. At that rate he's unlikely to ever pay off his student loans.

The Stanford alumni that I've worked with were Computer Science and Mech Eng. Neither was in any way special and both thought they deserved all kinds of special consideration because "they went to Stanford". I once worked with a PhD Chemist from Stanford who was impressive, but the undergrads I've worked with were lacking. Probably just bad luck.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[dcasto]

I'd put #4 on top, but for the wrong (right) reason

 

[zdas04]

The Colorado School of Mimes is a great institution, but I've found their graduates to be way heavily focused on reservoir, geophysics, radial flow, etc. Not so strong on vertical fluid flow or multi-phase flow without phase change. Some of the best reservoir engineers I've ever worked with have been from the School of Mimes, but some of the worst Production Engineers I've worked with came from there. I think #4 is about right.

I call it the "School of Mimes" for self preservation. I moved into a group that already had 13 engineers in 1994, and all 13 of them were from the Colorado School of Mines. Being a CU Denver alum I had to do something so when I walked into my first staff meeting I asked "Did it take very long to learn that 'inside the invisible box' trick at the school of mimes?". Two of them laughed, three got angry and the rest didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Number 4 on the list is about right.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist