South Dakota Mines rank second on Military Friendly’s national list for veteran services

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Not only has South Dakota Mines made the national list for Military Friendly Schools, but it also placed second for veterans services.

Mines is the only public university in the state to be ranked in the top ten by Military Friendly.

“As I think about that, I would say that a lot of veterans, when they do enlist in the service, they’re very young,” Wesley Quigley, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and computer science major, said. “When you’re thrown into a group in the military like that, you really develop a sense of belonging and identity with veterans. So getting our name out there and showing that we support the military family in general is what helps us. That’s why we push forward to have veterans come here. There’s a lot of friends of mine that don’t know if they want to go to college, and I tell them, ‘you should go apply at School of Mines. We’ve got a great setup here, and we’re here to just help you succeed.'”

Photos of the Veterans Resource Center:

Quigley also says that it provides a sense of community and it built him up to be more successful while he’s here.

Schools are ranked on exceeding standards of culture and commitment, academia, admissions, financial aid, return on investment and support for military students.

The support that military students receive at S.D. Mines includes: the Veterans Resource Center, Veterans Upward Bound on-site, veteran-to-veteran tutoring, campus-wide military appreciation events, financial literacy, military-specific orientation and military-specific scholarship.

“So I came here as a nontraditional student, which means that there’s not a lot of people I can relate to in a place like this,” Roberto Perez Torres, U.S. Air Force veteran and electro-engineering major, said. “Everybody gets here when they’re younger. So this place provided people that I can relate to, people that are similar to me and people that I can always depend on, people that eventually became my family. We cover each other’s backs, we support each other, we help each other with personal things and also with school things here. You know, people that have been through classes help us out. So, yeah, it’s definitely the most valuable thing is the support and all aspects of life that you get from this place.”