This is driving me crazy! My college degree is from BYZoo. I hate having to tell people that and I hate having it on my resume. I've even thought about earning a degree somewhere else just so I can take the BYU degree off.
Has anyone come to peace with this?

I have two degrees from that school down South. I hate it too. If I'm applying for a job where I know the employer is not a Mo, I usually show up to the interview with a large Starbucks prominently in hand.

Well yes but I went and got another degree so it's easier to hide.

I don't mind because I'm an Engineer and BYU is well known and liked in industry for engineering (other degrees too). If anyone asks or comments, I do tell them I'm not a memebr of the church, just went to BYU.

No, I went to the U of U.

I was just trying to explain to my nephew two days ago that you are marked for life with that blue sheepskin. If you leave the cult, your resume will always show that you were probably Mo, unless you are an athlete on scholarship. Luckily, my nephew told me that he has chosen Texas Tech. He hasn't been able to be a missionary due to sex, another positive for his future.

I usually just tell people that I am not Mormon. It is embarrassing to admit that I fell for a cult, even though I was born into it.

In retrospect, I never would have gone to any school associated with that awful theocracy of Utard.

Marshall

I applied to BYU. Didn't get in. My mother cried.

A few years later I transferred from the U of U to a jesuit school that makes BYU look like Winnemucca State. So grateful the Mormon god didn't let me in.

I totally can not stand having BY-Peew on my resume. I have been discriminated on both by nevermos and mos alike. I even had a job inteview with a well known fortune 100 company in which one of the interviewers was an LDS bishops and would not stop asking the illegal questions about religion during the interview. He even told me about their temple in their city.

It was very uncomfortable since I am an employment law expert and it was a Human Resources position. My life has been the shits with BYU or anything LDS on my resume.

I work for the corporate legal dept of a fortune 100 company. A couple years ago we were looking for a tax attorney and I was asked to contact the people they wanted to bring in for interviews. I'm a paralegal for 3 attorneys. One guy was obviously Mormon, or at least at one time (BYU undergrad, 2 years humanitarian work in a foreign country). I was actually pretty excited. We are far far away from Mormonville and I would love them to hire a NaziMormon and then see the look on his face when he starts work and everyone says, "oh yes, we know lots of stuff about Mormons. NormaRae USED TO BE a Mormon and she's told us a lot." But I tried to also entertain the idea that he might be an exmo, which would be wonderful, and tried to remember how I hate people to jump to TBM conclusions when they see BYU on my résumé.

We were desperate to get someone hired before a former attorney quit. I called the guy, who sounded like a G. A.,to see if he could come on the following Friday since he said he was available anytime. He said "I can come any other time but I have a meeting in Utah next weekend that I have to travel to." I'm thinking "what kind of weekend meeting is more important than a job interview?" Then I realized it was conference weekend. So yes, I jumped to conclusions which I know is really bad, and thought he was maybe a bishop or SP and blew us off for conference.

So I told him I'd get back with him. But that week we had a woman come interview who I immediately loved and related to and wanted them to hire. So I told them the guy from Nevada didn't seem all that interested but that I'd try to set something up with him if they insisted. They were like "no, since we haven't already made arrangements, we will chose between the two we have brought in. And 2 years later I'm still so happy they did.

But the Mormon guy called back to let me know he was REALLY interested and would drop anything to come out. I wanted so badly to say, "too bad. We don't hire people who choose a cult over a job." But I didn't and don't know that I was even right, but on the chance that I was, I get some sick satisfaction from it.

Hate it! Won't acknowledge it on Facebook either. However, one year it worked in my favor when hired by an LDS boss. However, down the road, I had to deal with him giving me dirty looks for wearing sleeveless dresses.

I don't mind if non-Mormons ask about BYU, I just don't want to be judged by the active Mormons.

My grad degree helps, but doesn't mask it.

Yes, illegal questions from LDS interviewer. Hey man, you can't ask why I don't have kids.

When I was looking for a new job this past year every recruiter asked me why I went to BYU. I suppose it was a quasi legal way of asking me what religion I was. And this is with three graduate degrees at the University of Illinois.

I said that "at the time it was a decision motivated by religious preference." It seemed to do.

No one who interviewed me from the actual health care institutions went near the topic.

No one ever mentioned it as a negative to me. I think a lot of people think Brigham Young University is a reasonably good school, similar to religious schools like Notre Dame, Baylor, Georgetown and Boston College where religion is secondary to a good education.

Is your concern that people who read your resume will think you are still a Mormon? In my experience, they do think that. It hasn't bothered me--in fact, I used to let people at work think I am a Mormon because my lifestyle still remains Mormon-like even though until my grandfather's funeral a month ago I had not been inside a Mormon Church for decades. Where I live, Mormons are relatively rare, so it is not a problem. I can see, though, how you might find it galling.

I'm getting a graduate degree from Baylor.
It may be a religiously sponsored school, but it has none of the overtly religious requirements of BYU.
I think most if not all other religiously sponsored universities are the same.
No "ecclesiastical endorsement".
No "honor code" that violates basic civil liberties and even human rights.
No required religious propaganda courses.
And, after all, no 97% homogeniety of one sect.
These other religiously sponsored universities are still a safe place secularly. BYU isn't. BYU practices overt discrimination of all kinds. It's hostile. It's abusive.

BYU may have good programs, but it's SUCH a hostile and sectarian environment that in many ways it defeats the purpose of a "university". Its professors and students are under threat of getting fired/expelled, losing credits already earned, and incurring a rap on their record...REAL loss and damage...for things that are their human and civil right to do, or not do. And, ironically, they can and do get in trouble for honesty. It's a travesty.

Sorry, but more and more I think you SHOULD be ashamed to go there, or work there.
Things like that just don't happen at reputable religious universities.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2013 12:05PM by amos2.

Yes. I didn't like anything about my resume shortly after leaving BYU, because the whole thing screamed Mormon.

That's tough in the early stages. How do we sell ourselves, when we don't like the self we were for the preceeding years?

As I gained social and professional capital outside the Mormon world, this has gotten easier to deal with. But initially this is a real difficulty.

Having said that. We know about the inner workings of totalitarianism, and groupthink in ways that other people can't recognize. That too can be useful if we apply it in other contexts.

I graduated from BYU in 1993 and immediately got a job in Provo, so it wasn't an issue. I'm now 20 years into my career so it's pretty well buried by now and no longer relevant in my field. If any interviewer or employer made a remark about it, I'd call them on it for bigotry. They can think whatever they want, but even hinting at acting on their prejudice could land them in legal hot water.

Snowball's comment above was excellent--those of us who survived BYU (and the LDS church, for that matter) and kept our ability to think intact have an uncommon inner strength that will stand us in good stead for the rest of our lives.

It's been almost 30 years since I graduated from YBU. I went to another institution after that for my Ph.D. Did a lot of interviewing when I finished, but I don't recall anyone really making a point of it since all of my relevant classes were not done at YBU. I don't mind mentioning that I did my BS and MS work there, since the gelogy department at the time (early eighties) was fairly well thought of.

When it comes up now, I just say I went there because I was mormom then, and then say I'm not now. Generally that's the end of it.

Where you get your undergrad matters most at the beginning of your career, and fades in importance after about 5+ years of real-world experience. After that, all anyone cares about is your competence and ability to get things done.

If you don't make a big deal about it, then others probably won't either. BYU is considered strong in some areas and I can't imagine many employers who would see it as a liability.

There are some places I would be embarrassed to put on a resume, but BYU isn't one of them.

Don't get me started on how its made my career really tough since moving back to Utah. I'm actually a Delta Airlines Diamond Medallion frequent flyer as a result because I spend more time working outside of Utah than in Utah because of this stupid crap that I have to deal with just because I have BYU on my resume. For a while I had a former Bishop and diehard U of U fan as my boss. He'd always try to rub it in for me being BYU Blue. I honestly couldn't give a rat's a** if BYU wins any sports events. But he's more died in the wool Mormon than U of U red so I just kept my peace. Anytime I've worked in Utah I always just cower down and keep up appearances at the office. When I work outside Utah I'm pretty vocal (to those who know me well) on what's wrong with Mormonism; and even then I remember one guy I worked with who kept me at an arms length distance once he found out I was from Utah and flying in all the time. Eventually he started disclosing how his in-laws were LDS and once he found out I was exmo he became quite open with all his frustrations. LOL.

I know someone (former co-worker) who was an evangelical Christian as a teen. Went to Bob Jones University. At 30, after becoming an agnostic & also ready for a career change, she went to UC Davis.

She was (is) a funny, intelligent woman who made jokes about the BJ in her academic past.

Oral Roberts University is another school that often gets comments.

It is what it is. Many super religious people are steering their kids to Patrick Henry because even Liberty University is seen as too worldly.

If you consider most freshman are parent-influenced & wet behind the ears, it's hard to hold their first university against them.

Brigham Young beats Bob Jones and Oral Roberts and it makes Patrick Henry look like on-line barber college.

I graduated from UC Davis (EE) and get the occasional joke referring to livestock.

YES!

But at least I don't have to say I'm an Eagle Scout!

I now see BY as the evil, selfish man he was, and I regret having his name on my diploma. I am no the type to hang my diplomas on the wall, but I will certainly never hang that diploma on my wall.

I am so sorry for those of you that had to go there. I got admitted on a "lamanite" scolarship, but caught a teamate having sex in a dorm, he was suspended from representing BYU, DURING THE OFFSEASON! I thought that was such BS that I decided not to go. My sister went there, as a senior, 20 years old, she had a baby, with only an internship left to do to graduate, she never went back, now at 38, she is a sophomore at the U. No one would take the credits and she is exmo now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2013 02:41PM by kori.