Mining engineering students strike gold with industry experience and success

Carlson software mining engineering team Richard Gerber, Drew Reese, Benjamin Cooper Hardman and Jacob Horner. (WVU photo/Megan Rinker)

The Carlson Senior Mine Design Competition pushes West Virginia University mining engineering students to take everything they’ve learned in the classroom and apply it to a full-scale, real-world mine planning project.

Story by Emily Handrahan, Storyteller
Photos supplied

Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

For Teaching Assistant Professor Amy McBrayer, that’s exactly what makes the experience so valuable.

“While the goals of the contest, to encourage high-quality senior design projects, have remained the same, the competition has evolved based on the changing landscape of mining engineering,” McBrayer said.

What once may have been a traditional senior design project has grown into a much more complex, industry-aligned experience. As mining engineering has changed with advances in design theory, regulation and technology, the competition has changed with it. Students now work through coal, aggregate and gold mine designs that require them to think across multiple systems at once.

“The technical caliber of these reports and overall demand upon students continues to increase to ensure students are ready for the next step in their careers,” McBrayer said.

Only one project per program is submitted, meaning each team represents some of the strongest students in their graduating class. But McBrayer says the real value isn’t just in competition results — it’s in what students learn along the way.

“While students do complete the reports submitted for the competition in a classroom setting, this process offers students the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the interconnection of mining processes,” she said.

For many students, that is the first time everything they’ve learned starts to feel connected.

“The senior design class was one of my favorite courses I took at WVU,” said Jacob Horner, WVU graduate. “Although it was challenging, it cumulated all of the different mining engineering courses and real-life internship experience and put them together.”

But the learning curve was steep, especially when teams had to solve problems in real time.

“Learning new things on the fly was definitely a challenge,” Horner said. “Whether it be new software or retreat mining operations, our team had to work together to solve problems and teach each other in areas we weren’t knowledgeable in.”

Despite those challenges, he said the experience ultimately confirmed his career path.

“The competition definitely solidified my desire to be a mine engineer,” Horner said. “I enjoyed all aspects of the project I worked on, from geological studies, mine timing, coal marketing, and economics.”

Now working as a mine engineer at a longwall coal operation in Colorado, Horner said the competition directly prepared him for the tools and expectations of the industry.

“I have used Excel skills, geological analysis, AutoCAD, and Carlson mine timing software in my current job,” he said. “It was extremely helpful to have prior knowledge of these skills before graduating so I could hit the ground running post graduation.”

WVU graduate Drew Reese described the competition in a similar way — less like a class project and more like a simulation of industry work.

“The Carlson design competition was a great experience that challenged you throughout the entire school year to complete a prefeasibility study for a mine site,” Reese said. “I learned a lot about how to interact with team members, plan and manage time better.”

For him, the experience balanced both technical and professional growth.

“I learned a lot of technical knowledge about mine planning, ventilation and ground control considerations that need to be implemented when designing a project,” he said. 

He also pointed to problem-solving as one of the most important takeaways.

“There’s no way to prepare you for every problem that you may encounter but through the years of school, you learn how to work towards fixing it,” Reese said. “A great thing about the mining engineering school is it gives you the opportunity to network with industry so there were professionals that we could reach out to that were willing and could help us when we needed help.”

That industry connection helped shape his career path after graduation.

“It solidified my intent to go into the mining industry once I graduated,” Reese said. “It also helped me understand what aspects of the mining industry I excel at and have an interest in and which ones I don’t enjoy as much so I have a better idea of what I wanted to pursue for a career.”

Now working as an aggregate management trainee at Heidelberg Materials, Reese said he continues to build on those skills in his current role.

“I get both day-to-day operations experience as well as projects to design and manage at a few of our quarries,” he said. “Since starting my internship and now full-time, I have been trusted with more and more responsibility.”

He also emphasized how important communication became throughout the process.

“I greatly improved my technical writing skills, which have been very important when asking for funding for equipment or projects and creating MSHA documents,” Reese said. “It’s also helped me work with others better and manage my time better.”

Looking back, Reese remembers both the stress and the accomplishment of the competition clearly.

“The first being all four of our team huddled around a computer looking at different maps trying to figure out how to lay out our mine and we were all sharing ideas on different design considerations we needed to take account of,” he said. “The second being turning in our final submission and looking at our binder full of work that we completed and feeling an immense sense of accomplishment.”

For McBrayer, those moments are exactly what the competition is designed to create — students thinking like engineers before they ever enter the workforce.

“These projects require mining engineering undergraduates to communicate design calculations and decisions in terms that geologists, CEOs, investors, or even the general public can understand,” she said.

That ability to translate technical work into clear communication is part of what sets students apart as they move into industry.

“The WVU senior design program definitely prepares students for a mine engineering job after graduation,” Reese said. “We have placed 1st in the country for this competition for the past 7 years I believe, which goes to show our students are world-class.”

McBrayer agrees that the competition’s impact extends far beyond the classroom.

“Winning the overall competition and the David D. Eyer Senior Capstone Design Project Award, indicates significant dedication to developing a feasible mine plan and demonstrates technical excellence,” she said. “This indicates to their future employers their dedication to the discipline and abilities as an engineer.”

From first calculations to final presentations, the Carlson Senior Mine Design Competition has become more than a capstone project. It’s a yearlong experience in problem-solving, teamwork, and decision-making that mirrors the realities of modern mining engineering — and prepares students to step into the industry already thinking like professionals.

---