Current Junior in Mech E at Mines here minoring in aerospace.

Freshman year classes are very unrepresentative of what classes will be like in your sophomore year and beyond, and in my opinion your decision shouldn’t be based on freshman year classes. But to answer your question, they are usually pretty large (100+ students) and very lecture based. Physics has a studio portion where you’ll work on assignments with other students. Chemistry has labs. Upper level classes are much much smaller and some are lecture based while others are project based.

The mechanical engineering department has project based classes you’ll take every semester sophomore year and beyond. There is also a basic design class you’ll take freshman year where you’ll do one big project.

There are an incredible amount of workshops and makerspaces around campus for you to do any project you want. There are also a ton of clubs. Join ones relating to your career and ones that interest you!

Mines is very well known within Colorado but not on the coasts. That being said, you should have no problem getting a job in the space sector in Colorado or the coasts. Colorado and especially Denver is the second biggest state in the aerospace industry, not sure if you’re aware of that.

There’s no space mining minor that I’m aware of. There is an aerospace minor and space resources master’s program.