College Life

Private Schools That Are Well Known for This Major

• University of Tulsa
• Stanford University
• University of Southern California
• Marietta College

State Schools That Are Well Known for This Major

• University of Texas—Austin
• Texas A&M University
• Colorado School of Mines
• University of Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania State University

Classes in the Major

Chemistry. Throwing around the term "hydrocarbon" pretty much guarantees there would be some chemistry. The value of oil and natural gas lies in the chemistry. Otherwise it's just gross water and air that turns into fire sometimes. That may be useful to wizards, but not to cars. The first step in doing anything with hydrocarbons is understanding how and why they work. Unfortunately, it's not just magic.

Geology. Here's the thing about the earth: it's made out of rock. Seriously. Even dirt and sand is made out of rocks that have been pulverized into microscopic chunks. Hydrocarbons, being underground and all, are usually under a layer of stone. Instead of hammering on a sheet of rock and having no idea why it's not crumbling, these classes will allow you to study and assess all of its weak points—just like how Batman interacts with the Joker, if the Joker were a hundred feet underground and also a rock.

Engineering. Come on, it's right there in the name. Like any smaller branch of engineering, this one uses the same principles as the others, just for a different purpose. An engineer looks at every problem and thinks, "What can I build to make this problem go away?" While this accounts for certain terrible innovations like the Mizar flying car, it also results in some neat stuff. In this case, you're going to be all about breaking up rocks, digging through earth, and getting to that sweet, sweet crude. That's what they call it. "Sweet crude." It's not, though. We've tasted it. Seriously, don't drink crude oil.

Physics. What? All the sciences? Did you really think there would be literature courses instead? Maybe drama or something? If you can figure out how to get oil out of the earth with the power of interpretive dance, then congratulations, you will win every Nobel Prize. For everyone else, they'll need to use physics. It's important to know how things move through space, and how they explode. More importantly, you should know how to keep them from exploding, since you'll be up close and personal with the stuff.

Calculus. With all that science on the schedule, you're going to need some way to express it in a way that people can understand. While in the olden days, this might have been with petroglyphs or decorative soup spoons, the task now falls to calculus. Think of math as a universal language, and try not to hate it so much. Unless you love math…in which case, carry on. It totally loves you back. We read its blog.