Need career advice.

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, so please forgive me for any unintended mistakes. This forum came to my notice while searching for some tutorials and I have to say, I sort of danced in excitement. This environment is exactly what I was looking for in the past few months.

I am a Mechanical Engineering graduate from India. I have been working in the Oil and Gas industry for the past six months. Although, my work profile doesn't actually fall under the core engineering sector, I've learned a bit about the O&G industry as a whole. I was working in the UAE as a client representative, through an Indian Company, in one of the No:1 EPC company in the world. However, I had to resign from my job due to the above mentioned reason, ie. my job profile.

Since then, I have been doing intense research as to find out which field would be the best to get into, but my lack of references is acting as a hindrance to it. Could anyone provide me with some directions regarding this?

I am more into the practical side of things, for instance, the front end designing, PV design etc. Moreover, forgive my ignorance, but one of the person I met at work told me that PDS, SP3D etc are basically soft-skill based jobs and doesn't really have any technical aspects to it. Is it true?

Also, can someone recommend any training courses or PGD courses to get a head start in entering the oil and Gas industry? There are a lot of 'Process Piping Engineer' courses doing rounds in India, but I'm kind of skeptical as to whether it would be worth it or not.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.