I was out on a drive today and thinking back on my college experience - specifically, how happy I am that I didn't end up sucked into BYU after joining the church my first year of college. I enjoy the relationship that I have with my alma mater - I have fond memories of my time there, am a member of the alumni association, and feel genuinely connected to the university. I feel like the university has made a very sincere effort to reach out to me after I graduated (partly for money, obviously, but also to encourage me to take advantage of services that it offers alums like career networking, etc)

After you cut ties with the church, did that affect your relationship with BYU? I know that reading threads on the topic, a lot of you are ashamed of your degree because it ties you to LDS, Inc., but does BYU still try to reach out to you to keep you engaged (especially given the rule that a Never-Mo can attend BYU, but an Ex-Mo cannot)? I know that many of you feel that you don't view your degree in the most positive light, but is it a mutual feeling between you and the Lord's University?

I kinda hated BYU even as a believer. My computer science program sucked and most of the professors were horrible.

The math professors and many of the other elective professors were equally awful.

Many of the religion teachers were even worse - one semester we had a librarian teaching the class because there weren't enough religion teachers. A couple were good - Joseph McKonkie was fascinating if whacked.

Even as a TBM whenever BYU hit me up for alumni donations I always told them I already paid at BYU with cheap shot parking tickets. I haven't noticed any reduction of getting hit up for money since resigning - my guess is that the BYU database just tracks alumni and has no idea what your current status in the church is.

My degree is so long ago that my professional work is all that matters at this point so I don't really care.

Honestly I still feel nostalgia whenever I'm on the campus for some reason or another - the campus is beautiful and there are some great memories from there despite me hating their program.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2013 11:21AM by bc.

I have been receiving magazines, newsletters, flyers and pleas for donations for over 30 years. Even in spite of my never setting foot in a chapel since I left the bee why and never contacting them for anything.

I wish I went to a normal university...I would probably have a much better job and definitely a much stronger network connection with other alums. I don't want to have anything todo with the crapass college I graduated from and got a sheepskin with dallin's autograph. The saddest thing for me is that my college years were crappy and I have no fond memories of college life like I hear from others, dammit.

I have loose affiliations with high school chums that went to ucla and consider myself more of a bruin than a cougar....

I am disappointed that I do not have an alma mater I want to be associated with.

For maybe 10 years, they really, really pushed for money. They would call my home and send junk in the mail wanting money. I finally told them not to CALL. Ever.

I do feel bad that I do not have a connection to share with other alumni but I do not want to have any conversations about me being an exmo.

They still send mags or department news now and then, but they are harmless and ignored for the most part. This has been going on 35 years.

It's awkward enough being prepared all the time at work with quips for when someone hears where I went to school.

My experience was at Ricks (BYUI) and other then the friendships I made there, the year was a waste. The Alumni have contacted me for donations and I've told them to take me off their call list...no calls for a while now and I unfriendly them on facebook.

Ron Burr

ps: I don't contribute to the other schools I attended and actually liked....

I... still cheer for BYU's football team...

To be honest, I had quite a lot of good times there. I know my college experience was vastly different from normal people's, and I'm sure I would HATE it now, but at the time, I enjoyed it.

I'm not going to donate money to them, though. They already charge their drones 10%, why do they need donations on top of that?

BYU grad 1983. Attended 1978-1983. BYU 80th ward, the Riviera apts. even though I am no longer a believer, I only have fond memories of my college years at the Y. I returned from my mission in the fall of '78 so all my time there at the Y was as a RM. most of the girls at the Riv were loosey goosey and would put out for a RM with a car and a promising major (future). God, if our bean bag chair in our apt living could talk!!

Oh dear lord, every other month it seems I get a mailer asking for me to donate to the perpetual education fund. Of course, I myself took out thousands of dollars of loans to go these brainwashing centers, so it really goes to show that not only am I supposed to pay 10% + tithing donation on fast sunday + perpetuating some asshole's cause when NOBODY helped me... righteous that is, I'd say.

I loved my degree program (music) and the faculty was great. I'm still friends with people I studied with in my major (over 20 years later).

But by the time I was finished (took me 7 years for two degrees), I was so sick of BYU that I really didn't even like the school anymore.

I am as inactive as you can get.

But I will say this, I loved my time at BYU, great people, beautiful girls, gorgeous campus and mountains, and I received a wonderful education. I have no regrets.


ETA: BYU 1981 then mission 82-84, then BYU 84-86 with degree.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2013 02:58AM by regularguy.

I graduated from BYU in computer science, and found the program and professors to be excellent. I also attended two other universities for postgraduate degrees. Although both those universities rank higher than BYU, their undergraduate programs and professors were poorer. Too many teaching assistants doing the bulk of the teaching, too many big classes, too many professors who spoke English poorly, too many professors who concentrated on research and neglected teaching. I don't regret going to BYU at all, particularly given the low cost I paid. That said, I don't donate to BYU any more, and I asked to be removed from their alumni mailing list, and was.

Interesting - we were in the same program and such a different experience with the professors. I would love to compare notes of when you were there - my email is public on here if you are comfortable emailing.

I had the exact same complaints about BYU - all the general ed classes had over 100 students, the professors gave lectures but the only actual teaching was from TAs, and many professors didn't speak English well, especially in mathematics. I remember one calculus teacher in particular who, when asked a question, would walk over to the board and fill it with equations that no one understood. I wonder if you went to BYU earlier when it wasn't as overcrowded? I was there 1998-2003 with a break in the middle for a mission.

Also with the overcrowding - parking lots are always full so you can't find a spot, there isn't enough room on the sidewalks to walk between classes so you end up on the grass (even though the signs say "Cougars don't cut corners), and off-campus housing is overpriced since you aren't allowed to live beyond a certain distance from campus.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2013 10:50AM by Naomi.

My parents insisted I go to BYU, so I went. I had many cousins there, and a large group of us Mormon high school friends lived in the same dorms. We didn't date Utah men, because they were weird. They concentrated too much on finding an eternal wife, moving up the hierarchy of church callings, keeping up the fake Mormon image, being domineering and arrogant toward women. We were interested in skiing, parties, and, by the way our studies. I am still friends from that hometown group, and my cousins, of course, and I go down to Provo often. Most of us were very sincere and moral, and most of us are ex-Mormons now.

I transfered to the U of Utah my junior year, graduated from there, went to Stanford, then returned to the U for more graduate work. I liked the classes, teachers, and my department much better than BYU's. When I lived out of state, I got teased about going to BYU, but I quickly reminded them that I left.

I graduated from BYU about 20 years ago. The one thing I don't like about it is I feel I "reveal" too much of myself with that degree. I'm not ashamed that I once was a TBM or that I now am now. But, I don't think I need that to be one of the first things people know about me when applying for jobs, etc.

However, I loved that I could focus on studying at BYU. I was a serious student and I think it served me well to have a large social scene without the party scene. But, I do feel like I missed a "traditional" college experience. On the other hand, no one has "stories" like my college stories. But, the biggest benefit was the cost. I feel I got a great education (social sciences and humanities) with a cost lower than most of the state universities at the time (I'm from a state where the public universities cost more than BYU, people from Utah thought it was strange that I considered BYU to be an affordable option).

I've pursued 3 graduate degrees and top-ranked universities since BYU and didn't find my degree held me back. They used to call me for money until I told them that they needed to stop having ring-wing personalities host the "Stadium of Fire" because I felt it contradicted the political neutrality the First Presidency proclaimed.

I loathed BYU and have only kept one friend from my days there. But, as Former Good Girl said above, it's got pretty good "bang for the buck" if you go there as a Mormon. They harass me for money regularly, of course. I'm absolutely certain that BYU neither tracks nor cares if its alumnae are still LDS or not.

of the Boston chapter of the BYU Management society. Ran some great programs and was completely open about my status.

I entered BYU in 79 and graduated in 85 with a break for a mission. I overall very much enjoyed my time there and have good memories. I was grateful for the relatively low tuition since I was paying my own way. At the time, they had a very effective pre-dental program with one of the highest dental school acceptance rates among graduates in the nation.

I dutifully contributed to their annual alumni drive for 20 years and then cut them off cold turkey at the same time I quit paying tithing. They still solicit, but now it goes in the junk mail basket.

Even as a TBM, I was hesitant to answer people when asked where I went to college because of the inevitable follow-up questions. Fortunately, I had a professional degree so I was usually able to veer the conversation in that direction.

Unfortunately, I'm still tied to the Y because my two oldest daughters are attending. I can see the effects of the brainwashing by their intensified devotion to the cult each time I see them. In fact, they are both leaving on missions this summer... yay.

I could not stand BYU, I felt like I was treated like a child. Despite their best efforts to enforce a joyless totalitarian regime I did manage to have a somewhat normal relationship with a wonderful woman (it didn't work out in the end), make some friends, have some adult fun in Salt Lake, and generally ignore the pathologic culture of "the Y". I avoided anyone who seemed to take the whole mormon thing seriously like the plague, maybe that is not the healthiest way to interact with the world, but it worked for me. Sadly, I did have a relationship with a Provo girl for a while who was, quite frankly, fucked up. I put breaking up with her and surviving a near drowning in the same folder. I am not embarrassed to have BYU on my resume, it is what it is, I am what I am, but when people get to know me now it always raises eyebrows.

I almost graduated from BYU, but dropped out for lack of funds. I later graduated from U. of Maryland, which doesn't look half bad on my FB page. I would not want to have BYU posted up there for all to see. But DW and two daughters are graduates. All three are TBM, so it's okay with them. Personally, I don't ever want to pull off I-15 into Provo ever, ever again. It is, as they say on Monty Python, "a silly place."

Even when I first went and I was the holiest of TBMs, still I found BYU to be sterile in every sense. The honor code casts such a pall over everything spontaneous and explorational which is the hallmark of learning and coming of age. The one-upmanship of the students as to who could be the most righteous was stifling.

I suddenly saw that the church was a lie about a year before I graduated. The shallowness of being treated like a child that I could endure before as the proud owner of a testimony suddenly became so grating that I fled the campus any chance I had.

I actually just went back last summer decades later with family because they wanted something from the bookstore and I felt NOTHING. The only good memories I had were any of those where I had broken the rules of the honor code in the end.

Just like before, it seemed so devoid of real life.

I worked at the University of Utah after I left BYU for a brief time, and it felt like it was full of every possibility and that every quirky person was welcome. That is the way it should be.

I am not ashamed of BYU, although I do hate that it brands me as a Mormon. I had good classes in the honors program and French and history departments. I had some great profs. I got a scholarship to George Washington University based on my BYU transcript and GRE scores.

I enjoyed BYU football. I met some good people, some of whom I still befriend. Socially, BYU was a mess and hell for a gay guy. I would not make the decision to go there today.

Do not be ashamed of your BYU education. I'm glad that I have degrees from two other schools, GWU and McGill, but BYU is perfectly respectable. You earned your degree and should be proud of it. I've never felt my undergrad education was anything less than my peers at work or in grad school.

BYU culture is like a rush to be the most liked male or female cheerleader.

Nasty, mean, underhanded, spying....etc. There are students there that despise that culture and push back against it. You can learn to be an individual but you are still surrounded by people who want to make a 1940's neo-nazi culture out of their college days. They can all suck it.

College should be fun and freedom and learning so you can go out and make some friends and connections where you all can live a middle class life and make some bacon in life. BYU has that but on a very limited basis.

Shouldn't be a surprise that I can't stand it now. It was a suffocating environment for me. I've never donated a dime and probably never will. I have however, donated a couple of thousand dollars to UVU.

I keep getting emails from the BYU alumni association. I realized that I'm sick of them and I'm never going to particpate in anything they do. I have to call them up to stop getting emails, I think. Grr.

I also just recycled the magazine they send out and realized that I need to get them to stop sending that also, or maybe I should let them send it and use it to start up the wood stove.

I will not give to BYU as long as they keep persecuting gay students. Until they treat gay students like proper human beings, they are wasting their time with me.

I graduated from BYU Hawaii and get requests for donations constantly, in spite of telling them to take me off the list at least three times. I loved my time there, but no way am I donating money to them - I spent 30 years of my life paying tithing and that's more than enough!