Tech Day gives prospective students a hands-on look at Montana Tech

As a high school senior in Livingston, Montana, Erika Haines had toured six college campuses. Nearly every one was the same, and she had decided she was bound for a top-ranked private liberal arts college out of state to major in education.

With a couple months left in her senior year, her mom convinced her to make one more campus visit: Tech Day at Montana Tech. The experience stood out after months of traditional college visits and ultimately led Haines to change her career trajectory entirely.

“A lot of the other tours just focused on learning campus, going into dorms and talking about those aspects, but at Montana Tech you actually got to interact.” Haines said. “No other school was doing that… I got to see the atmosphere, the people, the professors and the hands-on opportunities, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

Tech Day offers prospective students a different kind of college visit. Rather than simply walking through campus and touring residence halls, students step into Montana Tech’s laboratories and classrooms to experience the programs they could one day study. Tech Day will take place on Friday, November 13, 2026. Registration is now open.

For Haines, Tech Day consisted of detonating a blast with mining engineering, exploring a metallurgical and materials engineering laboratory and interacting with Spot, Montana Tech’s robotic dog that helps conduct mining research in the campus’s Underground Mine Education Center.

“Seeing Spot, the robot dog, I thought, ‘Oh, Montana Tech is doing things. They’re making stuff happen,’” Haines said.

She enrolled at Montana Tech in civil engineering before discovering environmental engineering through EGEN 194, a course that introduces students to different engineering disciplines. Growing up along the Yellowstone River in Livingston also influenced her decision. “I always saw the impacts of if the river wasn’t doing well, that community kind of struggled and the ecosystem struggled,” Haines said.

Now a junior studying environmental engineering, Haines has embraced the hands-on opportunities that first caught her attention at Tech Day. As a sophomore, she worked as an undergraduate research assistant in Montana Tech’s underground greenhouse, experience she believes helped her land a paid internship at Spring Creek Mine near Decker, Montana, where she conducted environmental monitoring and sample testing. Next summer, she will intern with Phillips 66 in Billings. “This is probably what makes Tech so special,” Haines said. “I got to do research work as a sophomore. At bigger colleges, some people that don’t do that until their senior spring.”

Haines says she’s confident Montana Tech has prepared her for the job market, and she’s focused on finding the right opportunities with companies that align with her interests and career goals.

She highly recommends students sign up and see where Tech Day leads them.

Students who attend Tech Day can choose to participate in a variety of breakout sessions to get a full day of hands-on activities. Sessions available include:

• Business & Information Technology: See how AI and data analytics come together to power modern businesses. You’ll experiment with Tableau to uncover insights from real-world data, then complete a mini-AI challenge where you use artificial intelligence to generate business ideas or solve a digital problem. Find out how Montana Tech’s Business & Information Technology program connects creativity, analytics, and technology for tomorrow’s business leaders. 

• Cadaver Dissection Lab: Witness and interact with human cadavers and participate in a hands-on exploration of cadaveric organs and tissues. Students will be able to learn more about our Biological Sciences, Chemistry, and Exercise & Health Science programs from current student ambassadors. Limited to 24 students. 

• Computer Science/Software Engineering: Students will see how a classic game leads to discussion for more advanced games, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and the ethical and moral dilemmas that can come from the AI applications.

• Electrical Engineering: Put your skills to the test as you learn binary code and program a robot to follow a line on the floor. Students interested in electrical engineering, robotics, and computer science are encouraged to join!

• Environmental Engineering: Explore drone-based remote sensing data collection and analysis for environmental engineering projects. 

• Exercise and Health Science Lab: Attendees will observe and participate during an exercise echocardiogram (EKG/ECG). The process will be led by current EHS students, with a discussion and Q&A after. Attendees will also be able meet and interact with current EHS students, and learn more about the Biological Sciences and Exercise & Health Science programs. Limited to 20 students. 

• Experience SAP - How Global Businesses Run: Ever wonder how companies manage everything from purchasing and inventory to sales, accounting, and production? In this interactive session, you will get a hands-on introduction to SAP, one of the world's leading enterprise business systems. Using a realistic business scenario, you will explore how information moves across different areas of a company and see how technology connects business decisions in real time. No prior SAP or business experience is needed. 

• Geological Engineering: Discover various activities needed to engineer the earth. This includes groundwater resources and contamination, rock strength for construction, tools used for mineral and oil exploration. Technology used in geological engineering such as drones will be showcased and discussed. 

• Mathematical Sciences: Explore some of the connections between mathematics and music. Attendees will learn relationships between pitch, frequency, and string length, and how Fourier series can express a tone as the sum of a principal tone and all of its overtone frequencies. Math is also used in the development of different tuning systems, including the ancient Pythagorean tuning and the more recent equal temperament. 

• Mechanical Engineering: Exciting activities and dramatic demonstrations in mechanical testing, fluid mechanics, and more! 

• Metallurgical & Materials Engineering: Learn how the materials that make our daily lives possible are made and designed with hands-on demonstrations and info sessions led by M&ME students.  

• Mining Engineering: Get to see what happens when chemical energy is released, and learn about the importance of safety in mining through a virtual reality (VR) experience. 

• Mechanical Engineering: Exciting activities and dramatic demonstrations in mechanical testing, fluid mechanics, and more!

• Nursing Simulation: The Sherry Lesar School of Nursing welcomes you into their simulated hospital environment for a hands-on experience. Students will witness the benefits of simulation training by observing a nursing simulation scenario, then have the opportunity to interact with high-fidelity manikins by checking pulses, pushing fluids - even learning to take a blood pressure. Limited to 30 students.

• Petroleum Engineering: Join the Petroleum Department as they educate on the process of discovering and extracting the oil and natural gas resources that keep our world moving, through demonstrations in our state-of-the-art laboratories.