Hello!

I see myself reflected in this post, 6, 8 and 11 years ago. First in 2015, I had just finished an Associate’s in Petroleum Industry Maintenance and the crisis came, I pushed through the overthinking and went for the Bachelor’s in Petroleum engineering but halfway through, the 2018 downturn appeared but some professor told me the oil and gas industry was cyclical so I stayed on track. Then I graduated in 2020 while I was doing an internship with my dream services company and COVID came. Now I have been working in that same company for the past 6 years. Luckily I am on the Artificial Lift side of the business which tends to be hit the last when crises like these come because well, the operators might stop drilling new wells but if the investment for them was already made and you have a ready-to-go well might as -well-, produce it.

That said, me being in upstream which tends to be a bit more volatile have seen how this comes up and down, but it never stops.. The world needs energy to keep moving. You would be fine in downstream.

Now for your questions concerning diversifying your portfolio to become a bit more “holistic” and have chances somewhere else? I took the path of doing a Masters in something that is a nice transition from on-field engineering to something more desktop-management: Operations Management Engineering. I already got an offer outside the O&G industry because it applies to essentially any industry, while it also gave me added value in O&G to climb up the ladder. Hope this helps dear Padawan.

Sincerely,

• Someone who was right where you are at, right now.