Hats off to the Class of 2019
Graduates in the 2018-19 academic year
Countries represented among graduates
Bachelor's degrees
Master's degrees
Doctoral degrees
Second lieutenant military commissions
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Army
Our time at Mines was about the challenges we chose to accept, even the small ones. And whether those challenges were good or bad, the way we deal with them is what makes us who we are. […] For us Orediggers, it’s our experiences that matter. Do not lose hope when you fail. Get help when you’re lost. And use your experience to make a more developed, efficient and safer world.
As students, we chanted the importance of earth, energy and environment. As alumni of Mines, we must march forward with this motto, for it is a reminder that we are the ones who will depict the future of our society, who will write the history that the next generations remember.
Mines is a truly unique and special place. You are now joining a very special club. You’re a Mines graduate. I feel so privileged to be a part of this club, and I hope you are, too.
Reviving a tradition
At each commencement ceremony, all Mines graduates receive a gift from the alumni office after crossing the stage—a padfolio they can take with them as they start their career. But this year, graduates also received a copy of the 2019 Prospector, the school’s yearbook.
A tradition that was put on hiatus for a little more than a decade, the Prospector made a comeback this year, driven by Mines students who had a passion for commemorating the sense of community they experienced as undergraduates. Zachary Orlove ’19 spearheaded the project, taking on the immense task of bringing back a publication with a long history and making it unique to the graduating class.
“My buddy Sevy and I were skiing and talking about the campus culture,” Orlove said about the inspiration behind bringing the yearbook back. “Some people aren’t as psyched about Mines as we are, and we were floating ideas about how we could improve that. One of the things we talked about was the yearbook.”
With support from Mines alumni and backed by the Mines Foundation, Orlove ran with the idea, getting a team of Blue Key members on board to help organize, write and publish the yearbook. Orlove had the idea of reducing the scope of the yearbook and turning it into a senior-focused publication, dedicating a fifth of a page to every senior who wanted to share their story. “We wanted this book to be their chance to say whatever they wanted and have their classmates remember them in that way,” Orlove said. “We wanted to give everyone a voice.”
Before hanging up his hat as the yearbook’s editor-in-chief, Orlove wanted alumni to know one thing about the Prospector: “That it’s alive and well.”
