Provo is apparently one of those anomalies where it is both highly conservative in its politics and highly educated. I guess it is all those BYU degrees like mine ruining the place?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/red-and-blue-economies-are-heading-in-sharply-different-directions/ar-BBWGXrv?ocid=spartandhp

"There are three places, all on a par, one is as good as the other," Brigham Young told Smoot, according to the account in the book. "They are Provo, hell or Texas. You can take your choice."

The legend is that when the Devil was offered the same choice, he turned Texas down and settled for Hell.

Education, in this case is defined by paper, mostly from BYU. Education based on life experience, common sense and logic are rare in Provo. In fact, many Utah County denizens that move away, come back soon because they can't function outside the Utah County Bubble.

stillanon Wrote:
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> In fact, many Utah County denizens that
> move away, come back soon because they can't
> function outside the Utah County Bubble.

I've never heard of this "fact." There are many people out of state that attend BYU and leave Utah after school. It is a meat market for sure but a place that many people return to? I doubt it. And this has zero to do with education.

"Education based on life experience"

These aren't the drones we are looking for...as clearly state in the article it was "formal" education.

It says that Provo is a lot like Colorado Springs except that Colorado Springs has a greater Evangelical presence, which might be true. The generalities the study advances about red and blue metro areas I think are difficult to accept on face value. I'd be more interested in seeing the correlation coefficients for the model they used, and the study they underwent to write this piece. I'm guessing the rigor of the stats are lacking?

It is indeed true.

LOL! He obviously knows nothing about the place at its crosses.

IS this source better for you?

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/red-blue-voting-democrat/2019/11/13/id/941537/

Education and BYU don't belong in the same sentence. My apologies to BYU grads.

When it comes to reading 'facts' out of books, getting an education isn't that hard. But when it comes to being given guidance on making a living outside the insular bubble of mormonism, I think BYU has a problem.

Here's my favorite personal story:

As an Advertising & Public Relations major, in the Dept. of Communication, I wasn't there to learn facts, I was there to learn context, and then I expected to fit my talent (all one of them) within the context of the American Adv. & P.R. template. Sounds impressive, huh?

Back in the day, the late 60s, the KSL weatherman was Bob Welti. He just recently died, at the age of 94. He was pretty popular back then. How or why it happened, I don't know, but he was teaching a class on copywriting. One assignment he gave us was to spend a couple of hours over at a local radio station writing ads for their local clients.

When it was my turn, I was asked to write some 30 seconds radio ads for that hamburger joint that was in the triangle on State St., between the west side of the BYU campus and Provo High on the west side of State St.

So naturally I wrote really juvenile, smutty copy, involving a guy just home from his mission and the girl who'd waited for him, with her seemingly trying to seduce him while all HE wanted to do was eat the food he'd been denied for over two years.

It was really sappy, horny, silly stuff, and extremely puerile! Besides leaving my copy at the radio station, I handed in my material to Bob Welti...

This happened just before Christmas break. So I was gone from Provo for at least three weeks.

The first day back in Welti's class he sadly lectured me on how unfortunate it was that I'd wasted my time, the station's time and his time with my juvenile garbage. He read my collection of 30-second ads to the class and then he went on to try to make a point about how life is serious and blah, blah...

But then he asked two guys why they were snickering at each other; he wanted to know what was funny.

So they told him that they lived in Provo and were there over Christmas and they'd heard all my ads run on the station and had thought they were hilarious.

I forget how Bro. Welti proceeded from that point because I was too busy busting my buttons.

My point being that BYU is in a bubble; they made the bubble, they sustain the bubble and I wouldn't mind if the school foundered in the bubble.

And then what happened?

I’m not the only person intrigued. I think there was a dedicated thread asking the same question recently.

I am interested too in what happened next.

I always got the impression that most people moved away after getting their degrees from Utah but obviously some stay and start businesses there.

Just imagine what a fun college town it could be IF it wasn't so Mormon heavy. And how much more intellectually stimulating too.

I like your story, Elderolddog. You obviously had/have writing talent.

I'm a BYU grad, too, and probably graduated in scholarship tennis and recreational skiing. I began as an English major, and wanted to teach high school English, but didn't like the English Department, so I majored in science, which was less subjective. The dorms and student government were fun, but we played like children. The classes were interesting, but bland, and it was a lot like high school. I graduated and got married in the temple to a RM, like I was supposed to. After 14 months of being battered, I escaped to another city, got a job, and put myself through graduate school, so I could support myself for the rest of my life. Personally, I would never have made it as a working female in '70's, if I hadn't gotten a DECENT education from a REAL university. I was married again, briefly, long enough to have several children, but then went back to being single and self-supporting again. Most Mormon women still don't prepare for this eventuality.

I found it almost impossible to survive in the Mormon bubble! I was almost killed by my TBM ex, cheated on and abandoned by my second TBM ex, and robbed of hope and confidence by the Mormon cult. Life was much easier outside the bubble--in every possible way! My children did much better in life, too.

I know fellow BYU students who never did leave Provo. They can throw their weight around, be "experts in their field", and administrative big-wigs, without having any real talent or imagination.

Sorry to ramble--my point is:

The BYU Mormons I knew didn't have a sense of humor!

They didn't appreciate humor of any kind, coming from others, either. Of course, they didn't like elderolddog's writing. Mormon literature? (Seven Habits and the Twilight books) Mormon art? (Frieberg's muscle men and those statues of silly, skinny people dancing) Mormon music? (Janice Knapp Perry, Saturday's Warriors, the Motab Choir, don't get me started). That's partly why I left BYU, because nothing really great (except Philo Farnsworth) came out of BYU. Both my ex-husbands came out of there. I came out of there.

I feel I changed things, and broke the curse, by graduating from graduate school from a different University, which I consider my true Alma Mater.

There are other places than BYU. I got my associated from what is now UVU and at the time (1990s) had an eclectic mix of professors. Their Ethics class and English class were some of my favorite.

I believe the education of the people in Provo isn't questionable. It isn't like higher education is qualifiable as the source for Provo but the amount of people with one.

Having degrees and being "Highly Educated" is not always the same thing.

Listening to a neighbor with two PhD's from BYU giving a talk with "I seen it" and "We done it"... just doesn't cut it. He can't discuss the classics, can't speak a foreign language past poorly remembered Missionary Spanish and has never actually studied much of anything. He does have his PhD's and knowing his Doctoral studies - a lot of it was not his.

Just as with the fast track Eagle Scouts - the "Highly Educated" mormon is too often a fraud. A good reason BYU gets so many honors - sponsored by the University itself.

This isn't a thread about BYU.

or "has got." The men I worked with who were master's, Ph.D.'s, all got their degrees (mormon) outside of Utah. Purdue was one of those.

But then there is the famous Lavelle Edwards quote. I would sooner lose and live in Provo than win and live in Laramie.

Mormon settlers in Utah came primarily from New England and Scandinavia and England/Scotland, all regions that valued education. Mormons have always been highly educated compared to other conservative Christian groups.

Utah County has 600K residents, and two universities with 30K students each, and many of those students are from out of state. Fully ten percent of the county are college students, and there are a lot of tech companies in Utah County. It should be no surprise whatsoever that it has a high percentage of people with college degrees.

My daughter graduated BYU in 2000. The graduation speaker was Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the Senate. In his remarks, he quipped that, as he looked over this sea of "wonderfully homogenous" students, he hoped they would seek careers all over the US and abroad to see the world and to spread their influence. His otherwise innocuous remarks so outraged the "brethren," that they overhauled the rules about who would deliver the keynote address, changing it from well-respected authors, politicians, and scientists to oy senior LDS leaders. That's where we are now; BYU tightened the wagons to protect themselves even more from the "harmful influence of the world." People have long played with BYU's famous motto, jokingly changing it to "The campus is our world." But in 2000, that's exactly what church leadership did. One more non-LDS speaker, already under contract, would speak at summer graduation, and that, finito.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2019 12:04PM by cludgie.

I don't see how those remarks upset them? I meant they are a cult so letting some other important person inspire their flock would be less desirable in their control of the world views they hope to inculcate in the young.

I also suspect the fact that they can get LDS leaders to speak for free figured into the decision. No uncomfortable ideas will be discussed, and it's free! A win-win for LDS Inc.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> No uncomfortable ideas will be
> discussed, and it's free!

Yet, another devotional motivational speech. Too much. Their inculcations start to fall upon deaf ears without something of a non-member but Mormon friendly star to enhance their firmament of fermented men.

Depending on the education. If you are looking for a liberal one it is an oxymoron almost. I had a couple of class at UVU which where taught by more enlightened people.

I think most people who attend a university know a lot of it is bullshit. The Mormons are going to try and indoctrinate you at BYU. The liberals try and indoctrinate you at schools they have control over.

College is many things. Most degrees won't even get you a job anymore. It's mostly remembering what you heard or read and parroting it back. Most of what we took in college we soon forget unless it's actually important to the actual career we are pursuing.

I graduated from the Marriott School of Business at BYU. Accounting at BYU probably isn't any different than at another school. I never had a problem getting a job because I went to BYU. It's business school is respected.

Half my relatives who live in Utah County are exmormons. They seem to like living there. One has a huge house in Alpine with it's own fruit tree orchards and a great view of the Wasatch range. They seem happy enough making lots of money in Utah's growing high tech sector.

Um Rubicon, of course you would not have a problem getting a job most places in the U.S. wth a BYU business degree. That's because the U.S. worships capitalism and doesn't really care who gets a business degree from where. And of course,in Utah a BYU degree is fully accepted.

But other degree subjects from BYU can sometimes problematic in certain areas in the country (especially more liberal ones) and particularly outside the U.S. where BYU is viewed with suspicion unless it's a very conservative city or country.