<p>Chuy: are you normally in the habit of dispensing advice that you make up out of thin air? They should tag you with “BS artist-knows-nothing-but-likes-to-talk.”
Petroleum engineers make MORE money with a BS than with an MS or PHD. Go to any schools website that posts earnings of graduates. A&M and UT both do this, for starters. By the time you’d be done with school with an advanced degree the guy with the BS is out-earning you. Look at the new OOH that came out last month, this reaffirms this data.
Engineers do not get some sort of first dibs on management jobs. Getting an MBA is actually great for PROFESSIONAL engineers, ie licensed. Since it takes around 5 years for that to happen, most get their MBAs while working after they graduate.
It is possible to get PETe jobs or similar jobs with other disciplines, but they will not pay as much as if you had a PETe degree. I have a friend who’s civil that was just hired a month ago, but he took a salary 35k less than a PETe would have. I have a friend who is mechanical that is a rig manager making a PETe salary but he had to work his way up to that over the course of a 12 year career.
Minoring in PETe is worthless. The PETe degree is attractive to employers because of the high level of specialization in the education. You won’t get that with a minor. If you want to make the PETe salary you read about you need to go to A&M or UT AND graduate in the top of your class. Otherwise you’ll make slightly more than the average engineering salary. THE top graduate of UT last year got 150k. Guys in the bottom of UT got 50k. Guys in the top of their class here a TTU are getting 75k. Guys in the bottom are getting unemployed.</p>