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"(00:00) so hello everyone i hope all of you are doing well and staying safe welcome to our webinar called the keys to success in in the oil and gas industry i am on roni smilovo a third year petroleum engineering student in french as a regional university and the representative of scg also a student chapter from azerbaijan and also with our second representative jamil aliva and we will be your moderators for today's session as i said uh the session will be mainly about because uh advices and his pass to oil and gas industry it will be done a (00:42) very distinctive and proficient speaker dr ahmed al-gharhim who has obtained his bachelor's degree in mining engineering from cairo university in 2003 and he also holds a phd degree from texas state university uh since 2004 he has been involved in industry with holding different positions in all the spheres of petroleum industry specialized in many fields including geomechanics well we're stability website geology and logging map blogging a nd many more currently dr ahmed is a professor at marietta college and (01:23) director of pure patron so let's welcome so mr ahmad we are really grateful to you for accepting our invitation and giving us such an opportunity for conducting this useful webinar so everyone please finally don't hesitate to drop your questions to the chat or to the question and answer section uh we will try to answer all of them at the end of the session thank you for listening and dr ahmed microphone is yours thank you very much for the amazing uh introduction also um uh thank you jamila both of you for you know uh (02:01) um thank you for both of you for this invitation also i would like to thank uh you know uh so the society of exploration and geophysics um at asoiu university the student chapter uh i'm very happy to be with you today you know i'm um as i just mentioned this is maybe the first time to give a talk not about something technical but just um giving some advices for the students i'm very hap py to do this today with you so um it is not a technical talk it is just a friendly advice you can't consider me like um uh elder (02:44) brother and today i will do my best to give you a good advice okay so i'm planning today to talk about multiple things first i would like to talk about uh some lessons learned from my life because i did a lot of mistakes in my life and the reason why i want to talk about these mistakes because i want you to avoid doing the same mistakes so um most of you you m aybe you are in early 20s or maybe late you know like um uh between 18 and maybe 22 years old so uh maybe you you don't have enough experience in life (03:27) so i will do my best to give you uh some of these experience 20 years ago i was sitting in the same place you are sitting now so i will talk about my education my work experience how to study in the united states how to work in the united states and at the end i will give you like a short list of advices and finally i would be happy to ans wer all your questions so let's begin okay so long time ago maybe 20 years ago i was doing my high school in egypt in a little government in egypt called fayyum and my dream was to study information (04:12) technology so nothing related to oil and gas my dream at that time is to be a computer science engineer or like a i.t professional and my dad did not like that and we used to get a lot of debate all the time because he want to uh to see me you know as a physician um or maybe a civil engineer but he he don't like information technology at all so at that time you know um i failed to adopt my plan because later when i finished my high school i went to a faculty of engineering and maybe you don't know that in egypt (04:54) faculty of engineering is five years and the first year is we call it preparatory uh year so you get like a general topics and after you finish your first year then you decide your major maybe you'll become a petroleum engineer or civil engineer or computer engineer o r whatever so i went to a university called helwan university it is not cairo university and after i finished i was very good student i get like eighty percent which is uh you know we we did not use the gpa scale uh at the time so i get like eighty percent and this (05:33) was a very good grade so i applied to transfer to cairo university to go for computer engineering when i went to cairo university they told me that they will not accept any applicant from outside cairo university if i want to side this company if i can imagine myself after five years from starting working at that company i would see myself at the same place and this is not a good place to stay so this is it was bad work environment so i decided to quit quickly but my advice to you please never quit a job except you have a better job even if you don't like your job keep uh you know stay doing this job try to learn as much as possible until you get a (08:32) better job then quit the bad one but don't quit a job to stay university and we used to do (10:54) that during the weekend so you can go and like you get this classes on saturday saturdays off in egypt friday and saturdays off in egypt and i used to study in parallel with my work again so in 2006 i started my natural gas engineering graduate diploma which is two years and i get a very good grade in that so they told me now it is accepted if you want to apply for a master degree in petroleum engineering in cairo university in 2008 by law in in cairo univers d gas all over the world as a professor okay and during that meeting you know i i have the picture of algebra algolia mall at the bottom this is a very famous small in houston because we get that meeting (14:04) at algebra okay so i was very shy because i was expecting professor hashem will ask me what is your gpa in your undergrad what is your major in undergrad and it was you know i i i for sure i will feel shy to answer these questions because i did not do you know i did a very bad job doing the feeling yes i can make that no problem okay i went back to egypt keep working for advantech until end of 2010 and uh if you if you remember it was an economic crisis started united states in 2008 and we had many projects inside advantech but these projects you know we we failed to renew some of them because of the crisis and in 2008 in 2010 i decided to leave because (16:57) uh the project i'm working on is already done and it seems like there is no chance to renew it so there is nothing to ls that company this is its name and we will call it wallet class training i will go i will go i will get experts from united states and i will ask them to come to egypt to teach and we will make a lot of money out of that because this is uh you know a company work for profit and this is a normal business business so we did that and we did a very good job and the world class training at that time in egypt was very well known inside the petroleum sector and all of this because i i was trying to d t i like to get pictures okay in 2014 because i built very good network because i get very good experience with advantech because i get very good experience with (22:23) galda apache dr solomon here in the picture he uh get me a position in texas tech university to become a teaching assistant and do my phd at the time i already have a master degree in petroleum engineering i already have a natural gas you know grad diploma i already have a mining uh baseline okay so dr solomon here in the pictur phd okay so in 2017 the petroleum industry was really suffering the oil price is very low they are laying off engineers in the united states no hiring i'm not as i'm not an american citizen at that time i don't have a green card at that time so whenever i go for to uh to ask for a job they put me at the bottom of the list (25:24) no one wanna hire me although i can uh you know uh you know i can claim that i was more knowledgeable than uh most of the other candidates but i don't have um you know ersity not for a company a bad thing about working for a company in the united states that they will hire you if the oil price is good and they will give you a very good salary if the oil price is bad they will they will lay you off they will ask you to stay home so if you work for a company you should save a lot of money because you should be ready to stay home for one year at least at any time you may go for your job this morning uh go for the lunch break (28:25) when you go back from the lunc them that they have a phd for shoes you will not hire me (30:31) because again they will say hey you are way overqualified you are working for us for maybe a few weeks and for sure you will leave because you will get a better job because you are a phd okay so i get this job as a matlogue for maybe four or five months maybe five like five months and it was my last chance to do a field work so i did my best to learn learn and learn get notes get pictures um try to uh memorize everything you know etition you know and you cannot do that without having a good essex again work ethics is very important if you are nice to people understand their work ethics in your company for sure everybody will like you for sure you will (33:29) uh that chance to do mistakes will be minimum so um you know again everybody will who likes it especially uh your managers okay so i found all of that in morato college yes it is not that big universities you know uh like um all our students we have like 1500 studen e call it pio petro so pio petro simply is a platform to have uh you know world class education free of a charge and we make it available for all for for all students worldwide and this is why uh you and azerbaijan know about me because many students of you already get some classes with with spiro petru and this is the main object of fiorpito is to serve uh petroleum engineering students and you know all (36:36) petroleum science related uh you know uh colleges like in you know if you study geol nship summer internship and and you know (38:46) between piopetu and the spe egypt section and we get uh maybe more than 8 000 applicants and more than 3 000 who continued the the classes and we got um students from more than 70 countries from you know more than 200 universities eight universities you already recognize this training as a uh you know uh as a replacement for the uh training required for students to graduate and for sure we get thousand of followers and you know on linkedin and fac hey but you mentioned that your gpa was too bad so how do you get a chance to study in the united states because i had a work experience so the work experience may help you may cover your some bad stuff like a bad grade in your undergrad (42:07) but you get a very good work experience so they will say hey let's give this guy a chance okay also they will ask you to get at least three recommendation letters maybe from your professors from anyone know you and you must get amazing letters don't go em nasruddin that a professor at a m he passed away by the way like six months ago so if i met him when i met him uh let's say uh if i did not meet him maybe i will not find any chance to go to a m and study there for sure yes i did not go for a different reason for um personal reasons and later i joined texas a m but yes networking is the most important uh part in this list if you have a very (44:58) good contacts they can advise you about the requirement and they can hire you as a teaching ass y to answer any questions at the end (47:00) okay now i will give you some general advices okay maybe many of you are very sad that um if you graduate now you will not find a good job they are not hiring in the azerbaijan and they are not hiring in other region now they are not hiring in egypt they are not hiring in the united states maybe you will you are sharing the bad news about the oil and gas industry these days but this is the good thing is oil price go ups and just up this ups and downs t would be better than stay home jobless okay don't stay home doing nothing okay the next advice is please remember when it comes to work and deadlines there are no excuses (50:06) accepted i don't care if you if there's a deadline today if i am your employer i don't care if you all come today and say hey yesterday i was sick yesterday i had any kind of problem my only i as a manager i will focus on that the work did not delivered has the work has not delivered and this is a big problem maybe we never as a company decide to lay off engineer they will keep these ones they will keep the good ones and they will they will lay off the bad ones like the one who did not deliver uh you know tasks on time also remember if i am your employer i will not hire you if i am doing an interview for you right (53:09) now i will not hire you if if you have a bad attitude or a troublemaker you must have a good attitude to keep your job if you have a bad attitude for sure after a short period of time of wal you know try to think about how to solve it instead of repeating that there is a problem okay also if you are not a team player if you are not helpful and supportive to your colleagues inside the company for sure i will not like you as an employee do you know why i don't care if you are a good player if you um i believe in azerbaijani like sucker right in egypt we like so-called very much in the united states with the they don't like soccer oh you know you (55:55) know you know girls they like tuation about economic situation inside the company and you need to lay off some engineers (58:00) and you you are not working with us anymore please don't stop uh to develop your skills so training uh whenever there's a chance to get training do it and remember this stop learning new things only when you die even if you are 70 years old if you are 80 years old if you are nine years old try to learn new stuff otherwise you will be old-fashioned you know what if i stop if i stop learning new stuf o show uh your strengths points okay but again uh put yourself in the employer situation and ask yourself okay what is special about me to get a job okay what is uh creative what is innovative way uh to do this job and i will tell them that in my interviews that i can do this (1:01:11) and this and this and this and this will benefit the company a lot whenever they see a value they will be happy to hire you okay sit only with people who gives you positive energy sit only with people who gives yo ce not this guy will help you but maybe because you helped [Music] you know one of your colleagues one of your friends maybe someone even you don't know will help you i remember a very funny story let me share it with you when i was in in live in lubbock texas i was living in a city called lubbock it is in in west texas okay so and i had a problem that i need to find a job immediately because i will start my work (1:04:28) for marietta college after eight months and i cannot stay home for more t lped me (1:06:21) to find that job for five months and get a nice salary for five months just because maybe i helped i helped many other students or many other friends before and you know uh the god sent me that guy to help me so please uh believe in that if you need help try to help others and for sure someone will help you okay also i want to advise you to plan for future but don't make your future plans uh very rigid try to modify your plans whenever you get new inputs try to modify and updat geoscience graduate and um he wants your opinion about this downturn how would with this decision would it be good to do the master's degree in petroleum engineering this year okay during the downturn (1:09:33) if there's no jobs in the companies maybe this is the best time to think about uh doing a master degree or phd the universe is still hiring in the united states for uh you know for phd students and masters students and uh for sure yes the amount of the number of uh you know chances is les nd gas university of houston university texas a m ut austin louisiana university texas tech university you know colorado school of mines wyoming university um there was many maybe more than 30 different universities teach oil and gas in the united states and go and check the faculty members if your major is dwelling if your major (1:12:27) is geology if your major is you know production try to find who who's their professors working in your area and before contacting him asking for a scholarship od experience attract my experiences attractive my vis my research skills is uh are attractive and i will ask only for a scholarship so if you if you are from a middle class family your family not very rich and it is not easy to send you to the united states and and pay for your university tuition no i'm not advising you to do that just ask only for a scholarship free of a charge uh master degree or free overcharge phd and they will not give it to you uh you are different you are unique you (1:1 my contact is you know easy to get just write my name and moreta college you will find my cell phone number you will find my (1:17:45) email so try to contact me directly also if you want to volunteer for the spe or seg or spwla at any country you will you will find a chapter something like a student chapters inside universities or you will find a section for the country so you will see spa azerbaijani section spa egypt section spe north america section for example so just you contact them you t pandemic so um we are expecting to to see a very high uh you know uh needs for oil and gas there a lot of companies will be hiring so i believe the situation will change a lot uh you know after one year maximum from now thank you very much so the next question is uh from muhammad he is asking that (1:20:51) uh right now the companies are not recruiting the fresh engineers uh muhammad is unemployed and he has finished his bachelor's degree this year and he wants to ask whether he should change ice and at the same time if you do a master in petroleum yes this is a good idea and i forgot to mention something if you came to united states with a master's degree in petroleum it is very easy to get a phd a free overcharge this will be way better than uh came to united stand say hey i have only a basilar degree but i don't have a master of a phd so if you do a master degree in in in your country then your the chance to get a phd scholarship in the united states would be very easy (1:23:42) s even geology or whatever so yes you can do anything thank you very much so i think one last question (1:26:00) uh what would you suggest to do the master's degree just right after the bachelor's degree and then beginning to work in the petroleum engineering or firstly to gain the some experience with after the bachelor's and then having a master okay um this is a very good question again um if it is your choice if if you have a job start with a job the question is if there is no job okay go for and they can work as a mud engineer as a mod engineers inside companies because they can work in hydraulic fracturing high in in acidizing because there is a there's a lot of chemicals and whenever we receive these chemicals we need to test it (1:28:56) so chemical engineering has a lot of things inside our industrial inside oil and gas industry so um it is not one job there's many many many jobs for chemical engineers inside the oil and gas industry so thank you very much and uh we have one mo ea if if you like that this is for sure better than staying home doing nothing and i i promise you whenever there is a job you will be way way better than all others so just um be ready for something you don't know now but yes after one year after six months maybe tomorrow you will find a very good opportunity and the one who will take it is the only one who is ready for the job and try to be ready (1:31:54) so thank you very much for the lecture for this amazing session we h"