The Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy is home to OU’s petroleum engineering and geosciences programs. We provide students with unique educational experiences that prioritize experiential learning from the lab to the field, and practice environmental stewardship. For more than 100 years, graduates from our college have gone on to shape the state, lead across the nation, and create advancements that positively impact us all.
Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering
Founded in 1919, the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering is synonymous with the energy industry. Do you want to power the world? That's what we do.
School of Geosciences
If you've ever wondered how volcanoes or earthquakes happen, how Tyrannosaurus rex became extinct, how mountains form, or how climate changes over time, ask a geologist.
The OU Bartell Field Camp, dedicated in 2011, is home to both the geology and geophysics field courses. The Bartell Field Camp is located on the northeastern edge of the Wet Mountains and overlooks the Cañon City Embayment, a structural reentrant in the Colorado Front Range. Snow‐covered Pikes Peak is visible to the north and the Great Plains to the east. The area is an ideal geological field laboratory – the Phanerozoic section and faults associated with the mountain front are beautifully exposed and available for study. Combined with the near‐perfect weather and closeness to a variety of outdoor activities and metropolitan Denver, it’s no wonder OU students have been coming here since 1950!
Mewbourne College alumnus Ronnie Irani had a vision to advance students’ careers by merging entrepreneurial problem solving skills with technical expertise in energy-related fields. This unique program brings real-world, real-time projects from energy companies to the Center’s newly renovated hub, a modern office space in Sarkeys Energy Center.
A student team will work with a company on a specific project that could involve anything from: dissecting existing oil and gas plays; preparing industry-styled type-curve and reserve reports; evaluating undeveloped zones for drilling/recompletion opportunities; evaluating re-stimulation, artificial lift and compression configurations for optimizing production; and evaluating petrophysical and geological characteristics of resource plays.
You and your team will provide the company with actionable results. Faculty oversight is in place, making the Irani Center the perfect bridge from the classroom to career. The skills you gain are multi-disciplinary and practical, and will differentiate you from your peers at OU and at other energy-focused universities.
The National Oilwell Varco (NOV) drilling simulator, donated to OU’s Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, is an industrial standard simulator used to create unique virtual experiences that allow students to safely apply their academic knowledge to real life scenarios and build further skills that enhance their learning all in the safety of a controlled environment. The simulator is built along with NOV’s expertise in generating virtual environments in which to train their drilling operations personnel for procedures on rigs; 3D animation, a cyber chair and unique source code for hydraulics and other drilling processes are part of the simulation. OU’s Drilling Simulation Center (OUDSC) consists of hardware and software units concentrated around the NOV simulator.
The great outdoors is what draws many people to geosciences. The majority of geology classes involve field trips that focus on the subject matter—studying volcanoes in New Mexico, desert sediments in Nevada, or catastrophic flooding in Arizona. Introductory class field trips focus on the geology of Oklahoma, which spans over 1 billion years of Earth’s history, recording a time when Oklahoma was situated on a beach near the equator before being uplifted in a huge mountain building event that left behind the Arbuckle Mountains.
Outside is a natural laboratory for geologists, and the many field trips that occur within the undergraduate curriculum equip you with the skills used by professional geologists. You will observe and describe rock formations all over Oklahoma. You will measure tidal influences along the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. You will also make geologic maps of the mountainous terranes of southern Oklahoma. These field skills will develop students into successful professional geoscientists. All of these field trips culminate in field camp—the six-week capstone geology course that occurs after your junior or senior year.
Ranked Petroleum Engineering Program
College clubs, organizations and technical societies
Countries represented at the college
Study abroad destinations
Have you explored our campus yet? We would love to meet you! Schedule your visit to the University of Oklahoma's campus today.
Our faculty and students discover how to innovate solutions to problems that affect us now. They also learn to prepare for solving tomorrow's problems.
Sarkeys Energy Center provides a state-of-the-art setting in which OU’s faculty and students and the energy industry can explore interdisciplinary energy topics and train future generations of researchers and industry leaders.
As a future geoscientist or petroleum engineer, your work will take you across the globe. The College’s International Programs office provides you with the resources and support to kick start your life as a global citizen.
Student life at Mewbourne College is just as diverse as our student population. We have nine college clubs, organizations and technical societies, plus the countless other student organizations across campus.
