Petroleum Engineering = good career for aspie?

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Hi. I'm a 33 year old lady with Aspergers, whos had a hard time in life. Sensory bombardment and poor social skills means that I've spent most my life so far in seclusion, away from university, broke with odd jobs and involved in strange unhealthy relationships.

I'm trying to get my life together. Believe it or not I work at TSA right now at a major airport. I get overwhelmed everyday and its starting to take a toll. I cant be a nurse because of the required comraderie with other nurses mostly female. I cannot feel trapped somewhere....anyway, is anyone here a pet engineer?

Would I get harrassed in this field as a woman?

I like it because it seems project oriented.

There are so many facets to this field. I knew a bloke who went over the world as a petroleum engineer. Made a ton of money, and of course had a missus who was miserable. But that was just his job, being on site. I'm sure there are a lot of lab type jobs analyzing soil and rock and so forth. Not to mention all the equipment research that they do.

My opinion is you could do well in that job being an aspire expert.
That is if that sort of thing was your obsession from an early age.
If you are starting from scratch with no sciences like geology, hydraulics, mechanical engineering, chemistry etc at 33 years old its an uphill battle I would think. Your success would be because of your expertise in the field, they are not going to pay you all that money for no reason, it is because you make them money. You are talking about one of the highest paying jobs out there.

Have you been on an oil rig, yep its a man world, its dangerous too, well a little dangerous but that should not bother you right Are going to be harassed. You bet you are. There are many different kinds of harassment out there. Could you tell us about different kinds of drilling mud? Could you see yourself as a woman getting an oil rig job as experience, I mean your passionate about learning everything you can right? And of coarse you fail miserably end up with wracked off finger, Would that be a positive thing, you bet it would be. Not deterred you continue studying learning everything you can from college and anyone else you can. You have to be willing to take chances, risk and fail and learn get knocked down and get up and try again.

Really there are many related jobs that you could get into in this field so dont let me deter you But you have to do it to succeed. You could do sales, like drill heads and so many other things. Are you into selling things that are long and hard? You might be surprised that you could do so well in such a venue like industrial sales.

Have you been to Best Buy? You know on there employment test they screen out aspies. Have you noticed how useless their sales people are? How they are absolutely ignorant about there products they sell?

In my opinion it wont be anything like nursing with all the female politics and harassment you had to deal with. As far as feeling trapped when you get payed that kind of money its a trap with travel and 24/7 dedication to the project.

Good Luck

My Dad has numerous AS traits and he is the managing director of a branch of Mott MacDonald, an international engineering consultancy. He deals with "oil, gas and petrochemicals" and he loves his job. He has a PhD in Civil Engineering and he said he really enjoyed his studies.

they do call aspergers the 'engineers disease'
my dad and grandpa were both engineers, and so am I

It's the 'hyper focus'.

Yes, I know this industry quite well and yes, it is an Aspie haven. I almost wished I went to be an Engineer but sadly lacked the ability to understand abstract concepts. From what I've been told, about 25% of people in that industry are Aspies or have strong Aspie traits.

Not necessarily. A former female coworker was an feminine as it gets with the stereotypcial 'bubbly' personality and I asked her difficult was it. To my surprise she had almost no trouble at all. The work was bad but NOT because of harrassment.

I think I am wrong saying harassment. I am thinking it is going to be a very different experience from a bunch of nurses. You just need to get out there and do something, even if its wrong. If your not making mistakes your not trying hard enough. One good thing I can say is the oil patch has been booming, I see no chance of demand going down. As far as fossil fuels go they are not going away in anyone's lifetime.

You can check out the movie about "Temple Grandin"
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt18645.html
I can very much understand the attitudes of those who gave her a hard time. I think if you were a guy trying to change the highly inefficient way they were doing things you would still get a lot of harassment I think.

I am thinking the oil business does not have lots of accumulated inefficiencies, its very efficient and fast paced I think.

Gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales in our part of the country, western Pennsylvania/West Virginia/Ohio are creating opportunity for all kinds of people involved in drilling. You might try www.theuticashale.com for some information. They have a radio show with pod casts that talk about employment sometimes. Check it out and maybe you can work around here.

I am on a rig right now. I am a rig site geologist in North Dakota.

Lots of solitude. Lots of free time. No customers to deal with. And they pay us a stupid, guilt-inducing amount of money for a relatively small amount of work.

Lots of women work out here. They get along just fine. My boss is a woman.

I think it's the perfect job.

Good luck,

Message me if you have questions. Maybe I can be of help.

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