Opportunities From: Volunteer with Mines

The Admissions office is looking for 5 alumni in the Houston area to share your experience and career outcomes after graduation! This special event will be held at a Maggiano's location to connect admitted students and their families with the Mines community. By volunteering, you'll have the chance to inspire future Orediggers, enjoy great food, and connect with fellow alumni in your area.

Your stories and insights can make a lasting impact, sign up today and help us show what makes Mines so special! Final details about the event will be sent as a reminder email the week before the event happens.

The Admissions office is looking for 5 alumni in the Dallas area to share your experience and career outcomes after graduation! This special event will be held at a Maggiano's location to connect admitted students and their families with the Mines community. By volunteering, you'll have the chance to inspire future Orediggers, enjoy great food, and connect with fellow alumni in your area.

Your stories and insights can make a lasting impact, sign up today and help us show what makes Mines so special! Final details about the event will be sent as a reminder email the week before the event happens.

The Admissions office is looking for 5 alumni in the Seattle area to share your experience and career outcomes after graduation! This special event will be held at Ivar's Salmon House to connect admitted students and their families with the Mines community. By volunteering, you'll have the chance to inspire future Orediggers, enjoy great food, and connect with fellow alumni in your area.

Your stories and insights can make a lasting impact, sign up today and help us show what makes Mines so special! Final details about the event will be sent as a reminder email the week before the event happens.

The Graduate Research and Discovery Symposium (GRADS) is the annual showcases of Mines graduate student research. This year's event will be held April 1st-3rd and will include oral presentations and poster sessions with networking, a keynote speaker, workshops, and more. This year is the 10th anniversary of GRADS, and the program will be the biggest and best one yet. And we need YOUR help!

Minimum qualifications to judge - Judges must have either earned a STEM-based graduate degree, OR have 3+ years of relevant professional work experience. 

To be a judge - Review the judging timeslots and topics below, then click the "Respond" button to select the shifts you are interested in. Direct questions to the GRADS Chair, Molly O'Halloran (mohalloran@mines.edu), or Judge Coordinator, Ellie Miller (ellie_miller@mines.edu). 

Judging Assignment Schedule

Wednesday, 4/1

Thursday, 4/2

Friday, 4/3

The categories to be judged are:

Fundamental, Discovery, and Molecular Sciences: Research that probes the foundational laws of nature and the building blocks of matter, and students whose work focuses on uncovering the "how" and "why" of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena at a theoretical, atomic, or molecular level.

Earth and Environmental Systems, Resources, and Subsurface Engineering: The study, management, and responsible utilization of the Earth or space and its natural resources. It brings together research involving the physical earth, from deep subsurface engineering and mineral extraction to the management of water systems and planetary science.

Energy and Mechanical Systems: The systems, forces, and infrastructure that power and move our world, with potential topics focused on energy generation, transmission, and storage, as well as the design and analysis of complex mechanical structures.

Materials, Processing, and Manufacturing Sciences: Focused on the "creation" phase of STEM, this category explores how we manipulate and transform matter into functional tools and technologies. Research in this category spans from material property analysis to industrial-scale production, including the development of new alloys, the synthesis of chemical compounds, and the optimization of manufacturing processes like 3D printing or metallurgical processing.

Computing, Data, Modeling, and Robotics: This category is designed for research where the primary innovation lies in digital logic, algorithms, and automated systems. It focuses on how we process information, simulate complex physical realities, and automate physical tasks through robotics.

Technology, Policy, Health and Human Systems: This category addresses the intersection of technical expertise with other systems, whether they be human, social, physiological, or economic. It focuses on how technology is developed and managed, how policies shape use, and how engineering and science can be applied in the world.

Judges and attendees are invited to join the GRADS happy hours on 4/2 from 5:30pm-6:30pm in CoorsTek. The link to the GRADS website is listed below. Thank you for your supporting Mines graduate students! 

GSG website

The Admissions office is looking for 5 alumni in the San Jose area to share your experience and career outcomes after graduation! This special event will be held at a Maggiano's location to connect admitted students and their families with the Mines community. By volunteering, you'll have the chance to inspire future Orediggers, enjoy great food, and connect with fellow alumni in your area.

Your stories and insights can make a lasting impact, sign up today and help us show what makes Mines so special! Final details about the event will be sent as a reminder email the week before the event happens.

The Admissions office is looking for 5 alumni in the Costa Mesa area to share your experience and career outcomes after graduation! This special event will be held at a Maggiano's location to connect admitted students and their families with the Mines community. By volunteering, you'll have the chance to inspire future Orediggers, enjoy great food, and connect with fellow alumni in your area.

Your stories and insights can make a lasting impact, sign up today and help us show what makes Mines so special! Final details about the event will be sent as a reminder email the week before the event happens.

Make it Mines is Admissions' flagship event where accepted high school seniors and their guests are invited to an on-campus open house to learn more about all that Mines has to offer. Mines alumni are invited, and highly encouraged, to volunteer for this event to mingle with the guests during the lunch portion of the event at Mines Market. Lunch will be provided for all volunteers.

Event guests love talking with alumni and it helps to solidify their decision to commit to Mines. Come and be an active part of yielding the next generation of Orediggers!

Volunteers should arrive to the Mines Market by 12:15 pm on the day of the event to receive further instructions and meal vouchers.

You can register to volunteer by clicking the "RESPOND" button located at the top right of the screen.

Mines Capstone Design is seeking judges to review 10 student submitted Broader Impacts Essays. 

Every semester, Capstone Design students are assigned to write an individual essay about how their area of engineering impacts the social, environmental, and/or economic lives of communities and individuals. The top 10 essays from this group of approximately 550 senior engineering students were chosen by faculty and now need final assessment. The top three essays will be determined by Mines alumni and external partners, and the authors will be recognized at the Capstone Awards Breakfast.

The prompt for this semester’s essays is: Designed systems are not neutral; they actively shape the behaviors of people, the health of the environment, and the flow of economies. Develop a position that argues how an engineered system specifically related to your Capstone project has positively or negatively impacted the behavior of society, the environment, and/or the economy.

Sign up to be an essay reviewer by selecting the "Respond" button at the top right corner of this page. Someone will then be in touch to provide you with the essays and instructions on how to submit your assessments. Essays will be distributed to volunteers starting Friday, April 3rd. All essay reviews need to be submitted by Wednesday, April 29th (prior to our Showcase event on Thursday, April 30th).    

Our Program: 

The Capstone Design program provides an opportunity for Mines students to work with industry and community partners to solve engineering problems with creativity and ingenuity through a thoughtful and multidisciplinary design process over the course of a year-long project.

The Capstone Design program includes over 600 students from Mechanical, Electrical, Civil, Construction, Environmental, and Design Engineering who are supported by over 30 faculty serving as Project Advisors.  Our projects run two-semesters, with a new set of projects starting each August and January.   

Projects range from aerospace and product design projects for industry and entrepreneurial partners, to environmental and civil projects impacting our region, to humanitarian and assistive devices impacting individuals and communities.  We support nearly 100 projects each year from our industry and community partners.

To be a Judge: 

Sign up to be a Capstone judge at our Project Showcase by selecting the "Respond" button on the top right corner of this page.

As a Judge at Showcase you will chat with student teams to get an understanding of their project and help students strengthen their communication and presentation skills. You will utilize our online judging platform to judge teams on criteria such as Design Approach & Solution, clarity of next steps, and overall project communication. 

A cell phone or tablet that can receive email is required for this volunteer opportunity (no app downloads necessary).

Showcase takes place on campus on Thursday, April 30th. We will start the day with an orientation and welcome breakfast at 7am.

We look forward to seeing you on campus! 

Calling all Mines Alumni - near & far!

Mines is looking for alumni to submit a short 2–3-minute video to support all first- and second-year students in their CSM 101 & 202 courses.  Your video will be influential in helping students consider the breadth of majors available to them and what the experience and opportunities are like for that area of study.  Or how prioritizing your well-being/wellness in your personal or professional life has impacted you.  Specifically, the school would like stories from alumni that can speak on any of the below topics:

The videos should not be more than 2-3 minutes long and the process is very easy to follow along and fulfill.  We hope to receive videos before the end of June. 

All stories and all experiences are welcome.  Please support the next generation of Orediggers by sharing your Mines and professional experience.  Someone will be in touch with detailed instructions on how to prepare and submit your video once you register using the blue "Respond" button at the top of the page.          

This course is designed to provide the Mines students with advanced career planning and job searching tools that are instrumental to be successful in obtaining internships, co-ops, research, and full-time positions. The class will also give them guidelines on transitioning into a new career, and making a positive impact in their chosen profession. In addition to working directly on skills and materials, we have guest speakers lined up who are leaders in their respective industries. If you are one of these engineers, executives, and owners of successful companies who are willing to share your valuable advice and tips with students, let us know.

The Alumni Knowledge Archive is a Mines Online program comprising of video interviews with Mines alumni who have at least five years of work experience. We make these interviews available to our faculty and staff developers, who select clips to use in our Online graduate programs and in continuing education courses to help bring learning to life.

If you graduated with any degree from Mines, have at least five years of experience in the working world, and have an interest in sharing your expertise, we’d love to hear from you. We’re particularly interested in finding alumni who can share their insights in:

We customize the questions to your experience. You might share:

Steps involved

Mines is expanding professional and continuing education programming. We offer a diverse portfolio of learning opportunities for STEM professionals who are seeking career advancement and lifelong learning.

What are we looking for? We are actively recruiting Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who are passionate about creating and presenting tailored content in professional STEM fields.

Is this right for you? If you are interested in sharing your knowledge and expertise with other professionals, apply today and join us for this exciting new initiative!

Apply Today

This program teaches the 6 key competencies, and real world experiences are a valuable way for our students to learn about their importance and applications. Following are the ways one can get involved, please email us with any further questions.

Mines Career Center is holding Industry Panels in collaboration with departments for students to have a better understanding of various industries, emerging trends, opportunities, and career paths. These events are also great networking opportunities for organizations/ employers to make introductions and share their internship and job opportunities. Are you interested? Let us know!

Would you like to help Mines students via informal conversations you can have with students interested in your field or job? Let us know! We will make the connection. 

We have named our Innov8x Workshops as "Step Up Clinics" indicating the level of training offered, that is a "step up" from basic training that students are already receiving. The clinics will engage attendees in discussion and activity regarding innovation topics such as problem framing, intellectual property, business financing and more. Workshops will be conducted every other week on Wednesdays, 1-1:45pm during the fall and spring semesters, and will be free for students and faculty.

Join Our Newest Challenge as a Mentor, Judge or Problem Champion

We invite challenging problems from industry, government or non-profits. Mines students and faculty tackle problems in competitive challenges that range from 3 hours to 3 weeks or longer. Each challenge has 2 events: problem framing (mentors assist) and then solution pitches (final presentation where judges may be needed to select the winners). 

Teams win prizes by designing real-world solutions to problems with high demand.

Specific challenges and dates will be published on our website for the fall and spring semesters: https://innovation.mines.edu/challenges-form-page/