u/International_Tank84

Throwaway-ish vent, but I’d take real advice too.
Background: BSc in Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering (Istanbul Technical University, 2024), MSc in Industrial Engineering & Innovation Management (Vilnius, 2026). Field exposure is a Sperry Drilling MWD/LWD internship, plus a supply chain internship at a refinery and customer ops work in Lithuania. Azerbaijani, based in Baku, five languages, decent MSc record.
The problem: no full-time drilling job on the CV. I graduated into a market where nobody was hiring greenfield MWD trainees, applied across Norway, UK and Poland, and mostly got silence. Now I’m inside the conscription window at home, so military service is coming regardless of how my applications land. That’s 12 to 18 months completely out of the industry, at exactly the age when everyone else is stacking rig days.
So by the time I’m out I’ll be pushing 27 with a PetE degree that’s three years stale, an MSc that points at supply chain and innovation rather than reservoir or drilling, and a gap that recruiters will read as “he couldn’t get hired.”
Questions for people who’ve been through something like this:

1. Does a service gap actually kill you in oilfield services hiring, or do they mostly care that you can pass the aptitude tests and go offshore?
2. Is it worth trying to re-enter as an MWD/LWD trainee at 27, or should I lean into the industrial engineering side and go operations/supply chain in energy instead?
3. Anyone rebuilt into the industry after a forced multi-year break? What actually worked?
   Feeling pretty cooked. Tell me if I’m overreacting.

Throwaway-ish vent, but I’d take real advice too.
Background: BSc in Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering (Istanbul Technical University, 2024), MSc in Industrial Engineering & Innovation Management (Vilnius, 2026). Field exposure is a Sperry Drilling MWD/LWD internship, plus a supply chain internship at a refinery and customer ops work in Lithuania. Azerbaijani, based in Baku, five languages, decent MSc record.
The problem: no full-time drilling job on the CV. I graduated into a market where nobody was hiring greenfield MWD trainees, applied across Norway, UK and Poland, and mostly got silence. Now I’m inside the conscription window at home, so military service is coming regardless of how my applications land. That’s 12 to 18 months completely out of the industry, at exactly the age when everyone else is stacking rig days.
So by the time I’m out I’ll be pushing 27 with a PetE degree that’s three years stale, an MSc that points at supply chain and innovation rather than reservoir or drilling, and a gap that recruiters will read as “he couldn’t get hired.”
Questions for people who’ve been through something like this:
1. Does a service gap actually kill you in oilfield services hiring, or do they mostly care that you can pass the aptitude tests and go offshore?
2. Is it worth trying to re-enter as an MWD/LWD trainee at 27, or should I lean into the industrial engineering side and go operations/supply chain in energy instead?
3. Anyone rebuilt into the industry after a forced multi-year break? What actually worked?
Feeling pretty cooked. Tell me if I’m overreacting.

I just got accepted into the PhD in Digital Economy and Business at Transport and Telecommunication Institute (TSI) in Riga. It’s tuition-based, 4500 EUR/year for the 3-year full-time track, plus a 350 EUR registration fee. No stipend.
Background: MSc in Industrial Engineering and Innovation Management from Vilnius Tech, thesis on innovation and GDP per capita across OECD countries using panel regression. My proposal for TSI is on data-driven innovation capability and industrial competitiveness.
The reason I’m hesitating is that most of what I find about TSI online is not exactly glowing, and I can’t tell how much of that is about the bachelor’s programs versus the doctoral school. I also have applications pending at a few funded positions in the Nordics and the Netherlands, so this isn’t my only option, it’s just the only offer in hand right now.
What I’d like to hear from people who actually know:
1. How is a TSI doctorate viewed in Latvia and in the wider EU, academically and by industry?
2. Is the doctoral school genuinely research-active, or is it mostly a paid credential?
3. Can you realistically hold a full-time job in Riga while doing this program? Is that normal for doctoral students in Latvia?
4. Anyone who studied or supervised there, was the supervision real or hands-off?
Paying roughly 14k over three years for a degree that might not carry weight is the thing I want to avoid. Honest answers welcome, including “don’t.”

'm leaving my name out since I still have applications open with them.

I have applied to a few positions at the University of Twente in the last two months. One EngD rejected me within about two weeks with no feedback, one EngD is still waiting on interviews, and there is a PhD vacancy I want to send this week. I can't tell if this is just bad luck or if something in my file is getting filtered out early.

My background:

• MSc Industrial Engineering and Innovation Management, technical university in Lithuania, 2024-2026. GPA 9.05/10. The thesis was a fixed effects panel regression on innovation and GDP per capita across 37 OECD countries, built in Python and EViews. It was graded 9.06 and ranked among the best theses of the year, and I presented it at a junior researchers conference in April.
• BSc Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, technical university in Turkey, 2019-2024. CGPA 2.55/4.00. The first years were bad, with one semester at 1.28. It goes up to around 3.1 by the end, but the cumulative stays at 2.55. The maths courses are the weak part.
• My work experience is internships only, not full time. Three months as a drilling engineering intern at a large international oilfield services company (MWD/LWD tools, monitoring rigs in real time from remote operation centres), two months remote in supply chain at a national oil company refinery, and one summer at an architecture office doing BIM work.
• Python, R, EViews, Arena. Non-EU passport.

What I would like to know:

1. Does anyone actually look at the bachelor's GPA once you have a master's, or is it a hard filter somewhere in HR before the supervisor sees the file? Nobody has asked me for that transcript yet and I don't know whether that is a good or a bad sign.
2. The EngD is supposed to be the industry-facing track. Do internships count for that, or do they expect people with real years of work behind them? This is my main worry after the rejection.
3. How many applicants does a single Twente vacancy usually attract? I have seen numbers from 30 to 300 and I have no reference point.
4. Is it normal there to email the supervisor before applying, or does that just annoy them?

Blunt answers are welcome. If the honest read is that my bachelor's GPA makes the Netherlands a long shot, I would rather put the energy into Nordic positions instead.

Salam siz bu sayt haqqinda eshitmisiniz ? Men bildiyime gore siz burda bakalvr ve magistr senedi gondermek tesdiqleyirsiniz

Indi bele bir sual men ne bakavalr ve magistr diplom var amma onu bu saytda tesdiqlememishem ikiside apostil olunub (bakalavr kopya tesdiq ve magistr apostil tesdiq)

Mende cagirish oktyabrdidadir men indi ne ede bilerem cunki mene ele gelir men bunu indi gondermemisen mene 1 il 6 ay esgerlik olacaq.

Hello guys,

I am writing this post in disappointment because I scored 151V and 156Q on the gre prep swift mock test though I scored like 169Q once in a practice test and I scored 155. I don't know what happened to reduce all that score and previously I took a gre test 2 years ago without much prep and got 152V and 152Q. I am very disappointed and I am reduced to taking this exam online

I feel like an idiot for having this scores and I feel so discouraged that I will just forget about the GRE and not take it and apply for other programs. I don't know if I could increase my quant for up to 13 points and that alone would be suspicious given they have my scores on the record and getting 169 points on the exam seems unlikely and unrealistic.

What can I do to improve my scores at least in Quant because verbal will always be lower for me