Academia

Decision analysis is not a cookbook or series of boxes that must be checked before a project is approved, argue professors Reidar Bratvold and Steve Begg, who share some pointers on how to map out the likely consequences of decisions, assess the importance of individual factors, and choose the best.

Ali Ghalambor, head of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, looks at petroleum engineering as a career—one he considers at times to be more sophisticated than rocket science—and offers some insight into the profession.

We've changed the Student Link section to Academia. This will widen its coverage to the research, extension, and linkage functions of colleges and universities. A variety of academic topics will be covered, especially research.

Pursuing a graduate degree at night can be very beneficial. But it requires trade-offs and dedication and should not be entered into without considering both what you'll have to give up (while in school) and what you'll gain.

One of the most memorable programs of the MSc petroleum engineering degree course work at Imperial College, London, has been the Intra-Mentoring Group Project. This interesting and challenging exercise involved an integrated study, evaluation, and development of a real reservoir using actual field data provided by the field operator. The truly unique aspect of this pr…

In this issue, we would like to dig deeper into the role of young professionals and students in the future of our industry. SPE membership demographics (Fig. 1) should raise awareness of the projected future shortage of skilled professionals. This figure is indicative of the total population in the oil and gas industry. Similar trends in age distribution have been obs…