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A Membership Study of The Society of Petroleum Engineering
A Membership Study of The Society of Petroleum Engineering
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Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to investigate the validity in the observation of lack in
membership in SPE. Because the ultimate goal of an SPE student chapter is to reach out to all the
student body to raise awareness about the Oil and Gas industry, the findings of this research are of
upmost importance to the continuity of the TAMUQ chapter.
The main argument this study has established is that SPE does indeed lack in both the
quantity and variety of active members. There are several aspects which encourage students to
enroll in SPE. The two main causes were identified as SPE-sponsored events and a good marketing
plan. The suggestion this study wishes to convey is the creation of two new committees within
SPE.
Introduction:
The international Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) is the biggest individual-member
organization in the world with 144,000 members. The reason behind its exemplary membership
count might be the requirement that if one is to work in the Oil and Gas industry, they have to be
a member of SPE International. What is interesting is the demographic of those members.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers, as the name implies, is an institution for Petroleum
engineers, however members are of different educational background. Most notably the number
of Mechanical Engineers in SPE exceeds that of their Petroleum counterparts.
From observations around campus, there is reason to believe that the international trend is
not replicated at TAMUQ. What that means is that there are not many members in the society, as
well as an existence of a lack in diversity amongst those members.
After investigation, this was proven true. With around 70 members about 13% of the
student body is enrolled in SPE. Furthermore, 1 electrical, 1 mechanical, and 3 chemical engineers
are part of the organization which amounts to minimal diversity. This affirms the lack in fulfillment
of an SPE student chapters duty: reaching out to the entire student body to inform about the Oil
and Gas industry.
In this report, the original assumption of lack in membership is proved, tried to make sense
of, and further analyzed with some suggestions to follow.
Methodology:
The purpose of this study is to observe the membership trends in SPEs TAMUQ student
chapter. The trends inspected are: the degree type current members of SPE are pursuing,
enrollment rates, and, finally, the factors affecting those enrollment rates.
Chronologically, data collection was done through:
Most of the data collection was only possible through administrative access to SPE database
by the publications and technology officer, a co-writer of this report. After data collection, the
data was rigorously observed and inserted in a graphing program to pick interesting data and
eliminate redundant ones.
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Data Collection:
The study was initiated by looking into the percentage of students who are enrolled in SPE
compared to the entire student body at TAMUQ. By numbers, out of 518 degree seekers, only 70
are members of the society. Out of those 70, and as estimated by the executive board of SPE, a
maximum of 10 members are active.
Focusing on the demographics of the total current members, figure 1 represents the
distribution of the current members of SPE according to the degrees they are pursuing. Observing
figure 1, it can be seen that the vast majority (87.8%) of members are petroleum engineers, and
the problem of lack in membership can be further described as a lack in diverse majors of members.
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New Members
Number of Events
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To quantify this lack in effective marketing, a survey was sent to the student body at
TAMUQ and 42 responses were recorded. Out of those, 31 (74%) thought they were underinformed about SPE events.
Solutions:
The first committee will be responsible for managing and supervising SPE events. This
study has confirmed that the most significant increases in enrollment rates were observed when
SPE increased the number of events organized. Another important factor was the type of the event
and it sponsered. The duty of this committees members will be to survey the student body and
focus on providing events which appeal to the diverse community in TAMUQ monthly. Ideally,
the committee would have to prepare a monthly report to the SPE executive board on monthly
basis.
The second committee will be responsible for supervising SPEs marketing plan. The
committee will handle tasks such as reaching out to students on various media platforms, ensuring
that all SPE activities receive full coverage, and educating the TAMUQ community about the
perks of joining SPE. Some of these perks are summarized in the series of poster in Appendix A,
which is an example of potential marketing intiatives.
Collaborative work between these two committees can help resolve several problems SPE
is currently facing. Ones like the lack of awareness that anyone can enroll in SPE which in turn
limits the potential members in the society.
Fulfilling the needs of a very diverse community here at TAMUQ is indeed a very difficult
task for the local chapter of SPE. For that reason, the most effective way of improving all the
aspects of membership would be to distribute specific tasks to each designated committee within
SPE. This is necessary for this SPE student chapter to fulfill its duty in informing the student body
about the various opportunities in the Oil and Gad industry.