The Changing World for New Engineering Graduates

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This is a joint meeting of Canadian Society of Senior Engineers and IEEE Life Members Affinity Groups.

This series of presentations has been occurring for more than 20 years and is now being also advertised to the IEEE Northern Canada Section (NCS) Life Members Affinity Group (LMAG) through vTools and other IEEE LMAG's and IEEE members depending upon the topic.  At the same time the Canadian Society of Senior Engineers (CSSE) is using their national organization to provide information, the subject and speaker to members across Canada.

The next meeting will be held on Thursday, September 18, 2025. The meeting will open at 12:30 pm MDT (2:30pm Eastern), with the presentation starting at 12:45 (2:45 pm EDT). The meeting will be held via the Zoom platform with the actual invitations sent the afternoon of Wednesday, September 17.  If you plan to attend and be included on the Zoom invite for this meeting please respond to Tom Madsen, tcmadsen@telus.net, before noon on Wednesday, September 17.

Please note the meeting originates in Alberta which is in the Mountain Time Zone, so if you are in another province you must account any necessary time shift. 

Title: The Changing World for New Engineering Graduates

Presenter: Bruce Peachey, BScChE (U of S ‘76), P.Eng. - President of New Paradigm Engineering Ltd.

Summary:  The experiences of students graduating from Canadian Universities as engineering BSc graduates are continually changing as the industrial worlds they are entering have many new and continuously changing needs, technological tools and technologies. Global and Regional politics are also creating new, more demanding and often contradictory demands on new grads, while at the same time increasingly destabilizing the year to year demand for new engineering employees. Generally, despite growing demands for employees, many engineers now in the universities are having difficulty obtaining meaningful summer and co-op term employment opportunities, and as a result get less out of their classes and have further difficulties finding permanent positions on graduation. Even if they find a position it is increasingly difficult for them to assess potential career options as the driving forces for projects and economics are highly variable due to political and societal changes that may or may not result in long term opportunities. This presentation will take a high-level look at how employment outlooks have changed for specific cases of Petroleum Engineering roles and how the working environment has been more chaotic for Chemical Engineering design roles for industrial positions when success criteria and design criteria are being influenced by often illogical or unsupported external influences. This changing world can greatly influence career choices for grads and potentially lead them down blind alleys from which they may or may not emerge from as professionals. This will be contrasted to the presenter’s own career progression since his 1976 graduation. 

Bio: Bruce Peachey, BScChE (U of S ‘76), P.Eng. is President of New Paradigm Engineering Ltd. and has over 45 years of experience in the Canadian oil and gas industry. He spent 16 years with Imperial Oil, in conventional and oil sands operations. New Paradigm was formed in 1991 to engineer “new paradigms” or new ways of looking at energy systems. He was a founding director of the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada (PTAC) in 1996. He has served as Chief Warden of Camp 6 of the Corporation of the Seven Wardens and is currently the Secretary-Treasurer of the CSSE. Over the past 20 years, he has provided over 50 unique design projects to 4th year Chemical Engineering Students (U of A and U of S) and almost 130 economic property evaluation projects for 4th year Petroleum Engineering Students (U of A). These efforts all include mentoring of students and addressing emerging industry issues which may help students understand potential career opportunities.

And… IEEE IAS Electrical Safety, Technical, Maintenance and Projects Workshop www.ieee.org/estmp , Edmonton, March 23-25, 2026 call for presentations now open.