Here's your diploma, now go pump some oil

In times of off-the charts oil prices and environmental concerns, it may be surprising to find out that thousands of people graduate every year to go work in the oil industry. The Wall Street Journal published an article analyzing where these graduates are coming from. During the 70s and 80s, most petroleum graduates came from Texas A&M and other top U.S. and European institutions, says the article.

The tables have turned. Today, schools in Azerbaijan, Brazil and other nations with state energy firms that manage vast hydrocarbon resources are expected to produce more than 12,000 petroleum-engineering and geoscience graduates in 2008, double the roughly 6,000 in the U.S., Canada and Europe, according to recent data from Schlumberger Ltd., the world's biggest oil-services firm by revenue.