If you chance to visit Mines and see the marching band, you'll notice that groups of students have different colored hard hats, and the majority of these hard hats are randomly splattered with white-wash. There seems to be no relation between sections in the band - each color maybe represented in every section. What the color of the hard hat signifies is the year in which the individual entered Mines. Every entering freshman is given a hard hat and transfer students. The idea is that, if everyone progresses through their majors at a similar rate, all the students with blue hard hats will graduate at the same time, then all the students with the green hard hats will graduate next year, and so on.
Mines is a school with some very deep-rooted traditions.
One of which is known as the M-climb. This is how everyone's hard hat gets covered with white-wash. These are just a few of the traditions here at Mines that make it such a unique and rich experience. For further information on the traditions and history of Mines, goto the CSM homepage.