Petroleum Energy Engineering Education Reform: Flipping the Curriculum

Abstract

The syllabus getting outdated, classroom attendance getting less importance, fast advancements of technology and changing workforce, and demography require us to rethink and re-examine the core curricula being taught at petroleum schools. The changing landscape like clean energy and carbon neutral delivery are adding pressure to re-examine the subjects taught in the classroom so that the long-term sustainability is established. So, acquiring interdisciplinary skills is crucial with the reformed curricula. The questions to be addressed include: "What is the fundamental problem in the present petroleum education?," "Is there any problem with the present theoretical framework?," "Is the petroleum education aligned with the latest developments such as edge devices, sensors, machine learning and artificial intelligence?," "Is there an academia-industry-regulatory agencies tighter participation?," and "What are the structural changes needed like rebranding as energy engineering?." The paper addresses these questions by proposing a new approach to petroleum engineering education by way of a changed energy engineering program, which involves fundamentals of engineering, sciences, and technologies that culminates in the development of experiential learning on cyber-physical systems.