The conference was attended by professionals from esteemed petroleum corporations like 
Qatar Petroleum (the host sponsor), Shell, Total, British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Oryx GTL, Conoco Phillips, Chevron, Maersk Oil, Ras Gas and many more.

Honestly, surrounded by those delegates, I felt misplaced being an 11th grade school student.  For this reason (my age), I was initially disallowed from joining the program however after the interview during volunteer selection the youth program manager was impressed by my enthusiasm to contribute and permitted me to participate in the conference. Yes, I was the youngest among all the volunteer departments, but was thoroughly enjoying myself at the exhibition. Just like a kid gets lost in the wonders of a theme park, I too was captivated by the exhibition’s professional appeal. The feeling of interacting with future employers and observing agreements for partnerships between giant enterprises in real world, cannot be completely expressed in words. I remained awestruck by the conference’s magnificence and relished intriguing discussions with the professional firms. The longest of those conversations was the one with a disaster management and safety representative of British Petroleum. We talked for about an hour about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as I learned about the techniques BP used to arrest the spill and address the environmental crisis consequentially. We also discussed about the primary environmental and humanitarian responsibilities of such respected corporations and their job markets. After the interesting discussion, I felt curios to learn about Total association’s relationship with society and environment. As I visited its exhibition booth, I got to learn a lot about Total’s policy of industrial safety to achieve “zero serious accidents” and its initiatives to reduce unemployment and boost the global economy. Gradually the conference progressed and I interacted with international university students to learn about petroleum engineering and petroleum extraction techniques that the global oil companies employed. Meanwhile, I performed my duties at the Youth Lounge which was a gathering place for young people to network and share their ideas and thoughts. Daily presentations, job profiles and discussions were held around the scenarios that were discussed on the online platform (WPC Youth Connect). I remained busy interviewing the conference delegates and absorbing from the vast ocean of corporate knowledge. The exhibition provided me with an experience similar to that of a career fair and I learned a lot from the commercial negotiations that were completed around me. The experience taught me the benefits of being curious in life and the advantage of seeking new knowledge. I also discovered the significance of communicating ideas efficaciously and a few methods to remain diplomatically firm in negotiations. I wish to utilize such opportunities more efficiently in the future when I actually have a résumé to present…