I'm a BYU Provo alumnus and I have many pleasant and not so pleasant memories of being in the bubble inside a bubble. I still think it's a decent school, but the level of control through the Honor Code and the tales of how it compromises again and again it's academic integrity left a bad taste in my mouth.

As I am not part of the Mormon aristocracy mixing with the grand children of the general authorities I got a taste of some of what goes on with their families. GBH's grandson was in my ward, and I worked beside BKP grandson as well. Good kids, but definitely a sense of entitlement along with a warped sense of family priorities.

I also took critical thinking and writing classes and in some ways would apply this in our indepth religion classes. Of course I generally did poorly in the essays would do for class because I wouldn't be gushing my testimony on every page like some of my classmates.

Got quite a few other stories to share, but I'm interested in others' experience especially as I'm sure we'll have much in common.

I totally loved pretty much all of my BYU experience, but I think both my courses and some counseling I had both significantly contributed to my leaving.

My studies were heavily involved in deep, theoretical, and critical analysis for my field. It was what I wanted to study and I loved it, but I learned a lot of the critical reasoning skills in my course work, which took a toll.

I also experienced a traumatic divorce while at BYU and was involved in a therapy group on campus which also, I think, helped me a lot to see life in a different way (in order to cope) that also helped me to reciprocally see the church in a new light that also helped me to leave.

I lived in the bliss of the brainwashing until my finally year there when I started waking up to the lies. Approximately a year after graduating I wrote my exit letter.

Yeah, I wish I'd taken advantage of the counselling program there.

Divorce among my classmates was an interesting and dissonant thing for me at BYU. Glad things worked out for you as you woke up to the real world.

I only went to BYU for about 6 months before dropping out after my divorce (ex-wife was still going there).

University in general, not specifically BYU, taught me to think critically. But even before BYU, while on my mission, was when I was exposed to the most hypocrisy that ultimately led me to question.

As far as an education goes, BYU is a very good school and I really liked most of my professors. There aren't nearly as strict on the rules now as they used to be.

I am an alumnus of the inferior BYU-Idaho. That place is like how BYU probably was years ago. Way more strict on the rules.

I absolutely HATED BYU-I and that contributed way more to my eventual exit than BYU. Devotional is on only one of two subjects, 1) Temple marriage and 2) honor code. They guilt you into ratting on your roommates if they come home past curfew and that if you don't you're not fulfilling your duty to god. They treat you like little kids there. People there are way more uptight. No shorts, no flip-flops, and no capris for girls.

The testing center is horrible. A girl and her supervisor once deliberated for 5 whole minutes on whether or not I should be allowed in to take my test when my side burns where literally one millimeter below my earlobes. At BYU-I, if you have "beard card" for a play or a medical condition or whatever, you have to call ahead to the testing center so that they know you're coming. Then you have to take your test in a separate room so that you are not a "distraction" to other test-takers.

I could go on for hours...

Ya, BYU seemed like paradise after leaving BYU-I, even though it's still part of the same system with the same board of directors.

It got me thinking why god cared so much about length of sideburns and coming home 10 minutes past midnight.

Even as a TBM, I wouldn't have gone to BYU. I hate being told what to do, especially if there is no logical reason for the dumb rules.Dress codes were definitely not a favorite of mine. Besides I was Kennedy Democrat and Wilkenson was in charge during my college years. I wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes there and would probably have left the church earlier.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2011 09:05PM by bona dea.

I also could go on for hours.

When I was a new convert attending BYUH, I was less than impressed with campus ward bishops. Roger Gull was a religion teacher and bish. One day, I asked him what was up with this "Mountain Meadows Massacre" I had read about in CH. He couldn't look me in the eyes, but he said he knew nothing about that, had never heard of it!

My own bishie, Jerry Roundy, tried to recruit me into his "student snitch" program, with promise of cash pay. But when I asked him about it just a few days later, he just turned and fled. Must have been a politically dicey subject at the time on campus. But I was not impressed.

There was a real witch hunt going on there in the late sixties-early seventies. Get those commie druggie students!

I knew I would never fit in so I didn't even consider going to BYU. My sister went and had some truly bizarre experiences. I think that had a major impact on her giving up on the church. She told me some pretty crazy stuff about the rules not applying to some of the athletes (this was quite awhile ago) and having some roommates who got into polygamy.

Another problem was she was a Democrat in those days and it didn't sit well with some people.

"Another problem was she was a Democrat in those days and it didn't sit well with some people."

Nothing has changed in that respect.

hmmm...BYU; so much to write and so little time. Yes,President Ernest Wilkinsen literally had a spy ring for targeted professors and was exposed for it by a professor named Ray Hillam.

Yes, I had a professor in Grad School who used the F-word...in class.

And, Of course, cant' forget the friend of mine who had a beer with another female professor, who was single and made out with him after class at her home.

The days of Dallin Oaks---yes, there was a time when you were not allowed to take finals if you hair was deemed to be too long...

And, for the older folks, the 10,000 copies of the Centennial Free Press---a 1975 underground newspaper....etc.

There are many interesting stories about the Y and its history---the thing to remember is that it had/has everything that every other University has...just not above the surface.


The Y on the surface has moved more and more to the right as the years go by; many of us who went there couldn't stomach it now.

I graduated but was on continual academic and other probation for being an oddball. I wrote unpopular things on my car and drove all over campus...Security showed and and I was taken to standards, who insisted that there was something wrong with me. It is the only thing BYYU was ever right about. The thing that was wrong with me is that I thought for myself and was not intimidated with their shit...My degree is on my bedroom wall but I turn it in facing the wall. It is a great question when people ask...what is that....I show them and the degree has a chance to see daylight and I return it back to outer darkness asap.....I am ashamed to have the damn thing.....if they would give me my titiing and tuition money back I would gladly return it, postage paid...cult

fairly, and for the rules to make sense. I also expected it to be respectful of individual rights.

But there were things about the Honor Code that were just plain OVERKILL.

For example, rules that male and female students couldn't live under the same ROOF, even if they were in separate (not co-ed apartments).

Or that guys had to wear SOCKS to be modest.

It also bothered me that they told me where I could live until I was 25 (BYU approved housing was REQUIRED). I was an adult, for heaven's sake.

I seem to remember that there was a time period (1987?) when they were trying to do some kind of house check to make sure students didn't have members of the opposite sex in their apartments after a certain hour.

I hated having to complete an ecclesiastical Endorsement EVERY year to promise, yet again, that I was following and would follow the honor code. I signed it ONCE, and there wasn't an expiration date on it, as far as I remember.

I was a goody two shoes. I followed the Honor Code. But I didn't appreciate the fact that they didn't trust me to follow it.

And the thing that REALLY pissed me off the most toward BYU was when they kicked one of my best friends out because she wouldn't attend church anymore. She didn't believe and she wasn't willing to pretend or go through the motions. She even offered to pay NON-LDS tuition as the price for leaving the church. They wouldn't LET her.

Oh, and the self-righteousness was nauseating.

And lastly, the HYPOCRISY at BYU was amazing. SO many people pretending to be Mollys who were anything BUT. And they got away with it.


Oddly enough, those things didn't really hurt my faith. I even learned a few disturbing things in my D & C class that I was able to put up on a mental shelf. Those came in handy when I started doubting about 10 years later.

... We both thought BYU was a pretty great school in many respects --- particularly the social life. Many of the professors were quite brilliant. When I went (early to mid-70s, interrupted for a 2 year mission), the History and Political Science Departments were dominated by political liberals. There was a reasonable amount of free discussion in classrooms. But no one could really sit around in dorm rooms raising questions about the Church --- you would likely be reported by one of your fellow students. But, still, there were many intelligent students who were themselves thinking things through and were not shocked to hear liberal, independent thinking. For some reason, I get the impression that today there is more lockstep thinking on campus among the student body today than when I went there --- more alertness to signs of budding apostasy.
In any event, about 20 years after graduating, the religious views of both my wife and I had slowly but surely been evolving, such that we no longer felt comfortable with such a narrow, rigid, rightwing theology. We ended up resigning. Today, we still look back fondly on our BYU experience, but we hold Mormonism itself in ever increasing disdain.

I lost my testimony in the Lee Library reading about Joseph Smith--sometimes with a view of the Provo Temple. So much for losing your testimony in bars and nightclubs. That might have been more fun.

Constantly arguing with the closed minded students in various classes drove me to it. I increasingly had this itching feeling that I could only go so far in saying what was really on my mind.

I lost respect for the religion faculty, as you could tell they had it easy. They wrote fluff for the Ensign whilst the other faculty had to publish real research and creative work.