Protégé Mentorship: Earth Science

In our first placement mentorship series, Praveen Singh (Geophysical Technology’2020, IIT-R) joined the team ARP to share his professional journey at the R-land. In today’s update we have tried to the uproot the basics of the placement preparation and the engrossment towards the core branch subjects.

INTRODUCTION

Q. How did you get introduced to your profession/interest?

Well, everyone knows about the core companies as there are mainly four (ONGC, Cairn, Schlumberger, Exxon Mobil) in our earth sciences department.

The straightforward answer would be from seniors, obviously.

Q. What was your initial approach towards pursuing the field?

I inquired about the level of technical knowledge required in this field from my senior and started to work on improving the fundamental concepts of Seismic and Well Logging mainly.

Q. What did you do to bag your job, including your strategies & sources of practice/preparation?

Well, the strategy was pretty simple. Get the basics right, i.e., work on the fundamental concepts, along with learning about the recent developments in the Oil and Gas sector.

Sources:

Well, logging — Paul Glover Msc notes (pdf is readily available), Basic Well Log analysis by Daniel Krygowski, and Fundamentals of Well log interpretation by O.Serra.

Seismic acquisition — Prof. Sagarika notes

Seismic processing — First 5 Chapters of Yilmaz till Migration

Seismic Interpretation — Prof. Sagarika notes (not enough) and some materials from seniors

Petrophysics — Prof. Ravi Sharma notes and slides

Petroleum Geosciences — Prof. Ravi Sharma notes and slides

Gravity, Magnetic, Electrical, and Electromagnetic — Phill Keary (easy to understand and covers everything that is required in the interview)

If you don’t get any material, feel free to reach me. (Just the way I did !).

EVALUATION AND HEADNOTE

Q. Can you brief the selection procedure for the same? What all points enabled you to have an edge in comparison to your other peers in that field?

Selection procedure: Usually, Vedanta takes a test followed by group discussion and then final interview, but this year, they didn’t take any test, just GD and interview.

First of all, having good knowledge about the subject gave me confidence while providing answers and also in group discussion, I put up simple points which were easy to understand and the most important thing is I was calm, maintained a constant tone in my voice and had a smile on my face even when my other mates were a bit loud and aggressive in their style.

Q. What can all points strengthen the resume? And how can we, as students, develop it now?

1. Having a decent CGPA is a must (relative to other mates who are sitting in the interview)
2. Especially for GPT guys, try to do internships in both Well logging and Seismic and try to work and learn as much as you can during your internships; that will help you during your placement interviews as a lot of questions are asked from your internships and work done there.
3. Choose your dissertation topic and supervisor wisely. Try to do your dissertation on topics that are recently growing in the Oil and Gas sector as 4-D feasibility analysis (my topic), AVO analysis, Application of Machine learning in geosciences (I wish I could make do on this topic now), etc. Just have the fundamentals clear regarding your topic. The basics should be very clear.

Q. Regarding the tests & interviews, what exactly does their syllabus cover & the source material you referred to for your preparation?

You have to have strong technical knowledge of geophysics. Test and interview syllabus covers everything which we are taught in geophysics and geology but pay special attention to Well logging and Seismic. But don’t forget other methods are important too.

Source material: given above and my own personal notes. Don’t forget to make your handy personal notes as they will be accommodating while revising the syllabus, which, believe me, and you have to do like a hundred times.

Experience Buzz

Q. In case one’s interest doesn’t match with his/her branch of study, how should one manage to pursue the same under the constant pressure of maintaining a good CGPA?

Good CGPA, in my opinion, is anything above seven which is not very difficult to maintain. Just pay a bit of attention during the class hours or ask your friend to help you out every 2–3 weeks as to what all is taught in the class. Friends are the best teachers 😛.

(If ARP wants, they can include this honest point as well that everyone knows that a lot of professors repeat some questions in the paper every year or alternate years, just tell your friend to write those answers somewhere, and you mug it up. It should be enough to get you over the 7 CGPA mark.) — this is totally up to ARP GUYS if they want to include this point or not.

Q. How much do you agree/disagree with the fact that ‘CGPA matters despite not pursuing one’s branch as a Career’ & why?

Again, I would say CGPA does matter, but if you have a decent CGPA which in my opinion is anything above 7, you are good to go in non-core fields. The reason being, you will have the edge over someone who has the same level of knowledge in the noncore field as you but has a lower CGPA than you, and obviously, companies will prefer you over him/her.

Q. Any mistakes in particular you believe could have been rectified in the entire process?

Yes, I always have a backup plan, which, unfortunately, I didn’t have. This is a must, always remember. Always have a noncore skill, so if your luck is as bad as ours that a single company of core comes to hire, you are not left wondering ki “yaar kaash Kuch our seekh Liya hota.”

Having a job in your hand is very important when you pass out from this college.

Q11. What challenges did you encounter throughout the journey? How would you advise our readers to fight against them?

Fundamental question

Challenge and advice — I used to go to the library for the last one and a half years of my college life. The most common challenge that I faced was to have the motivation to wake up every day and go to the library. Believe me; it’s a tough job. But just take advice from someone who has done it, that even if u don’t do anything in the library, do not skip a single day going to the library even if u go there and sleep. It will eventually become a habit, and a day will come when u won’t even need the motivation to go to the library. U won’t even feel like staying in your room.