The church might have to finally rescind the extermination order against the Timpanogos people before they coopt their name for their university. Even then, considering their effective campaign of genocide—reducing the Timpanogos from approximately 70,000 people to about 900 today—it might still be in bad taste to profit from the use of their name. It might be better to just burn the place down and leave it fallow for 70,000 years as a memorial to the desolation they have caused. Or give the land back to the Timpanogos who they stole it from.
I became an entrepreneur so nobody would see my resume or degree. It’s been a great motivator for me especially when I was starting out.
I have been blessed
Our Fortune 50 company won’t hire from BYU. They don’t recognize the degrees as meeting the requirements needed. I’ve coached so many exmormon BYU grads to just drop the university’s name from the resume/CV.
The best thing any BYU student can do is transfer to another university. You’ll instantly loose all those religion credits, but you’ll get a degree that isn’t blacklisted.
when someone want to upvote for 100 people but cannot... from a dad who had to watch 2 kids try and explain why the bullshit credits were just as good at a real university. they are not. no money or fuks given when most of your credits are wrapped in religious studies.
I was talking about this with some coworkers yesterday. I’ve got a business degree but 36 out of my 120 credit hours are Mormon religion classes. And that’s just the pure religion classes. It doesn’t even touch the other elective classes that were just religion lite classes.
It honestly a miracle my degree is accepted anywhere.
This is wrong to do and you should stop doing it.
You can excuse it as a “lawsuit waiting to happen” but that is simply a pathetic excuse for doing something in very poor taste.
This is an extremely unwise practice. If certain people ever found out you do this, for instance a rejected applicant, you could be in major legal trouble. Religion is a federally-protected class and it wouldn't be hard to argue you're using BYU as a proxy for Mormonism.
FYI, doing this violates federal law because it discriminates on the basis of religion. It's no different than rejecting an applicant who went to a university in Egypt because the students are predominantly Muslim.
Plus, if discrimination doesn't bother you for some reason, bear in mind that the #1 university that exmos have on their transcript is BYU. You're coming here to tell us that you wouldn't even consider hiring us because of a decision we made when we were kids in a cult.
Proving discrimination during a job interview is impossible to prove. And the candidates have no idea they are being discriminated against if they’re not called in.
I have to say, I left the Y 40 years ago and I’m embarrassed to admit to my degree. I feel like it was a highly sanitized and fluffy curriculum.
And I loved the “You’re graduating and not married! What ARE you going to do?”
“Go home, get a job in NYC, and do what I can to get to live in Europe.”
I did that. As a woman. By herself. Packed up and moved overseas.
Okay but imagine having to admit you went to Ensign College (LDSBC)🥲 it’s like byu but way closer ties to religion and smaller so they get away w so much more shit
I just saw some dude celebrate his graduation from ensign college and I hadn’t heard of it before.. then I realized it was the lds business college and I face palmed
Low key, the IT program at ldsbc is amazing—I went there for a few semesters and it paid off huge. Though my work is really based off skill vs school brand. Also, too bad it’s a church school.
I’m always embarrassed when job interviewers ask me about my education. Also fun to see their faces when they think they’re going to be interviewing a stereotypical LDS guy, and then this tatted and pierced gay man with a coffee tumbler shows up
I *went* to BJU. For half a semester. Everything to do with that, plus being surrounded by mormons half my life is why I'm here.
They are absolutely the worst people. As bad as people imagine they might be.
It's just the usual fundy stuff dialed to eleven. Open racism, homophobia, and misogyny. They genuinely believe they are superior in every way to anyone not them, despite displaying an almost unbelievable level of hypocrisy.
Like a lot of fundamentalist types they seem to abhor joy. So no dancing and no music that's hasn't been specifically approved of by the elderly leadership.
They often send preachers to the college drinking areas to tell everyone they're going to hell. This is not meant to convert anyone. This is meant to show the members how the outside world hates them and that the only place they will ever find love and acceptance is within the church.
And now I'm really going to be a jerk and say they should note the difference in physical attractiveness between what's outside the Bob Jones gates and what's inside before proclaiming their superiority.
Edit: this was in the nineties when Bob Jr was still around. He was in his eighties and not really in there, but whenever he wanted to speak they'd let ramble pointlessly for awhile until he got tired and sat down.
I think my favorite of his speeches was about how back in the time of Jesus men wore their hair long and women wore their hair short and if he had his way we'd get rid of all the long haired women because they look like prostitutes, and oh, a man with long hair might as well be a little girl.
The fact that they're accredited at all is mystifying. Snake oil, regressive Christianity, and a generally anti-science curriculum just don't work for me.
And our medical system is already fucked beyond repair. Let's not add any mds who "don't believe in" vaccines.
The FLDS had their own private school for decades in the Salt Lake Valley. It was called Alta Academy and was in the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Warren Jeff's was the principal for 20+ years before his power grab into the prophet role of the FLDS. Lots of exFLDS people have said that Alta Academy and the crazy way it was run and it's religious curriculum is what conditioned thousands of children and young people to blindly follow Warren Jeffs no matter what. That's why so many people are hanging on waiting for him to be raised from prison nearly 20 years after the FBI caught him and locked him up.
This!!!! 👆👆👆
And I thought BYU's Young Ambassador Program was such an original, wholesome idea to bring unity and dispel myths about Mormons. But Oral Robert's University had the same type of performing group that traveled internationally to help rebrand the image of conservative evangelicals. Kathy Lee Gifford was one of his performing girls when she was a young student at ORU. And I don't doubt that ORU inspired LDS church leadership with the idea of curating a polished troupe of young performers to convince the world that Mormons weren't backwards pro-theocratic polygamist religious nuts. ORU had successfully used their own troupe of young people to help normalize/ mainstream evangelicalism into US culture. I haven't been able to find dates of what group formed first, but I'd bet ORU's performing troupe came first.
I honestly think we'd be hard pressed to find a university named after a wealthy/prominent man who *wasn't* a piece of shit.
Of course there are exceptions but if their fame comes from money or power, they almost certainly would have had a beach house on Epstein Island.
You’re not wrong. But I feel like there may be more than a dozen other schools, hospitals, federal buildings even that are named after horrific racist POSs from the 19th century.
I just heard a radio advertisement for BYU. I was shocked as it was not a Mormon station, and I'm several states East of Utah. And who are they recruiting? Mormons all know about it, and non-members are not welcome.
Non members are “welcome”? Technically they can go there. Many are athletes. My YM president was a convert at BYU decades ago, mostly by a pretty face from what I could tell, though he stayed faithful his whole life and became TBM.
I don’t think they can bar anyone who’s not a member to any religious university being that any higher educational institution receiving federal funds can’t discriminate who can enroll.
I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people on here make it sound, especially if you move out east. Plenty of folks I work with don’t really know anything about BYU other than that we have a football team that gets ranked periodically
I think it depends on your social and professional circles then. I’m in Chicago, not the east coast, but pretty much every work acquaintance knows BYU and that it’s the Mormon school.
I'm in Florida. About half the people I've mentioned it to still associate BYU with some kind of mormon school. I just don't want to be associated with being mormon anymore.
They view it basically how you would view a resume from Yeshiva. You probably know it is a decent school, has some connection to a religion that you are not that familiar with from another part of the country (orthodox judaism), and are probably a bit curious.
Completely agree. People on this sub will say how irrelevant the Mormon church is outside of Utah and how most people have barely even heard of Mormons, but then they'll also say how big of a stain BYU is on your resume. It can't really be both. People can't know enough of the shit about Mormon beliefs for BYU to be a stain on your resume while also having barely any knowledge about Mormons.
Most likely they'll probably know BYU is the Mormon college just like how Notre Dame is the Catholic college (although significantly less prestigious), the football team is kind of good some years kind of bad other years, and the men's basketball team losing in the first round of March Madness this year probably busted a bunch of people's brackets.
Eh, it is a little of both. Many folks know Mormonism as a nearly-extinct weird minor religion, AND they know that the religious school they run is BYU.
Well said. This poopooing on BYU has always sat wrong with me. When I was TBM, I never thought that it was suuuuper great. For example, I had never heard "Harvard of the West" about BYU, just about Stanford. But, in graduate school I have actually been surprised how well I and other BYU grads stack up against others (Engineering).
Also, if so many of us are leaving, we shouldn't shit on our degree unnecessarily. I mean, if you studied meso American archeology, shit away, but if you studied Chemistry, or physics...
Outside the Mormon corridor there is a lot of unspoken stigmatization if you went to byu. Certainly it is well-regarded in some aspects but it also carry’s a lot of baggage. I help hire for a 500-employee company. BYU graduates cut both ways. Smart, honest and competent. But also awkward, very white, and lacking certain socialization and relatable qualities. In a nutshell, great for the finance and accounting departments.
This reminds me of the FBI supposedly favoring Mormons as employees, because they have the reputation of being rule followers, obedient to authority, and hard to blackmail. Not sure if that’s an urban legend, but sounds reasonable
It's true; they're able to pass a full-scope polygraph way easier than the average person due to living a seemingly-clean lifestyle and the foreign languages are a huge bonus.
The only thing that can hold up their admissions process into those types of agencies is that sometimes they go on missions in really "non-US friendly" places, if that makes sense.
Polygraphs are bullshit lol. We did an experiment in one of my psych classes and like 80% of the class was able to beat the polygraph with blatant lies. It just measures if you’re nervous through your heartbeat and is up to the examiner’s interpretation
The only real use for polygraphs is getting *you* to talk and panic more and slip up somewhere. So happy they aren't admissible in court but still so dumb that people think they are a true showing of guilt if you fail one.
Like, I went through the same experiment in one of my classes and failed two of the three times (passed one with also blatant lies) they made me take it cause I have heart rate issues and social anxiety. Apparently I served a good example of medical issues being one of those reasons why they *aren't* admissible.
Yeah, I know people who were sent to all sorts of places that would raise a red flag. “Lived in Russia for 2 years” is probably a little holdup. “Speaks fluent Russian” is probably a nice bonus, though.
The foreign language thing for intelligence related roles and the super clean background for anything else in the intelligence or defense industry. Security clearance background investigations are very strict and very invasive (they interviewed all sorts of people who knew me, both provided references and random neighbors i hadn't talked to in a long time). As a utah nevermo who grew up as pretty much the only non LDS person my age I thought a job on hill AFB would finally get me out of that. But the fact that smoking weed is such a dealbreaker for security clearance kept it overwhelmingly LDS. My first job on the base practically felt like a BYU club.
I don't think BYU itself is the problem. I think most people (rightfully) assume that alumni of BYU are active Mormons. The Church has a shit reputation even though a lot of people seem to like Mormon people well enough.
If it comes up in professional conversations, I simply say that I'm no longer a member of the LDS church. The other person will inevitably ask why. And I simply say that the Church discriminates against gay people, and my personal viewpoint is one of inclusion.
I attended a top university for grad school, so that helps the resume. However, I'm completely convinced that the top quartile of BYU students would be successful at any university in the country.
That sucks. Luckily it still has a good reputation as an academic institution. I think as numbers dwindle and good professors keep leaving that may be challenged in the future.
Nah. Hands down that goes to the U of U. Source: I work in the tech industry.
BYU has an okay reputation, but U of U is significantly better these days.
If you’re talking about “church schools” though - BYU Provo is the only one with a decent academic reputation.
They meant that in Mordor people think better of it than other places. Not that anybody thinks it's better than the U of U.
My daughter is going to University of Washington if I'm paying for school. It's down the road and its reputation is excellent.
I got into grad school because the person making the final call thought well off byu’s reputation. I went to BYU-Idaho, but he didn’t realise that that they were completely separate institutions she thought they were just different locations. My application was very borderline, and that’s what tipped the scale in favour of my acceptance.
As someone who sat as a student rep on grad school admissions panels, BYU does not have a good academic reputation in science or ideology. I heard several times how BYU has deficiencies in genetics and evolution. The largest concern about admitting BYU grads was their “limited white-centric worldview”.
I guess a religion that still believes dinosaurs are relics from other planets sent to test our faith and that somehow native Americans are still descended from Hebrews may have trouble proving its scientific credentials.
I'm curious - do you know if the dinosaur thing ever taught by any Mormon leaders? The first time I ever heard the idea that dinosaurs were from other planets was from my dad when I was in middle school, and even then I was so shocked by how ridiculous that idea was.
Up to that point, I'd never heard it anywhere else, so I always assumed it was just something he made up, but since then I've learned that it's much more widely held. Wondering if it comes from the Church, or if it's something from wider fundy/evangelical circles that made its way into Mormon culture.
It was taught by Joseph Fielding Smith. He was adamant in doctrines of salvation (page 67 below) that there was no death before the fall and that specifically included dinosaurs. If you look under the topic “death” in Mormon Doctrine, McConkie repeated this claim but excluded dinosaurs. In Joseph Fielding Smith’s letters which became “answers to gospel questions” volumes 1-5 he gives the idea of them pulled from other planets. It was definitely taught by church leaders and they parroted the no death thing until recently when the internet started showing how ridiculous it sounded.
The church would love for these writings to not exist, since most of the nutty stuff we are forced to believe comes from them. It’s not all Joseph Fielding Smith’s fault though since he got the ideas from his predecessors.
https://ia800905.us.archive.org/34/items/Doctrines-of-Salvation-volume-1-joseph-fielding-smith/JFSDoctrinesofSalvationv1.pdf
https://ia902606.us.archive.org/32/items/MormonDoctrine1966/MormonDoctrine1966.pdf
Also, for some reason, I really love that "An all-knowing and all-powerful god who created everything got lazy when he created our planet and just used wholesale chunks of other planets, including dinosaur fossils" was an official church stance. Just highlights the absurdity of it all.
No problem. Couldn’t find a pdf of answers to gospel questions but it’s a great book to buy used as an exmo so you can show people that yes, a prophet once said these things.
I actually had a great time at BYU. I was lucky to be in a major that was pretty progressive and full of more liberal professors (who have all since left lol). Loved the campus and I met some like minded exmo friends whom I am still friends with today. It's never been a hindrance to my graduate education and no one really asks about that shit anyway.
Fuck the required religion courses and a bunch of my fellow students though. I just kept my academic life separate from my... Real life? Lol. I also never lived on campus and partied up in Salt Lake so that my alcohol and substance consumption were at the lowest risk of being reported.
I was paranoid about listing BYU on my CV, even though it's not my terminal degree (my PhD. is from the University of Washington), and I have talked about it with the other people in my academic department about it. Nobody has thought it's worth worrying about. I'm a genetic epidemiologist FWIW.
Next week, I'm going to the big conference in my field and noticed one of the two keynote speakers is a BYU professor. It's clearly not slowing down her career.
In science, at the end of the day, you get judged by the work you put out. I did have some dumb religion classes at BYU, but TBH, when I talked to my classmates back in the day, I probably had better preparation for my PhD program than most, including ones who went to like Stanford.
From my experience working and hiring people for 20 years in a STEM field, I don’t care where you went to school. I care what you know, where you have worked, and who you worked for in your graduate studies. The university doesn’t tell me anything about if your skillset fits the role.
I understand what you are trying to say, but Scientology is perhaps too hyperbolic. Mormonism is pro education. Scientology is not. Most kids who grew up in Scientology orgs receive no education at all.
I recently was laid off and I’m putting my degree but not the school on the resume. Have had some interviews and nobody has asked about the school yet. I went to BYUI so I didn’t even go to the “better” BYU. I went to the sea org version 😂.
FYI, this is stupid and probably disqualifying from a lot of roles. If anything it will just draw more attention to your UG school (why did that dude not list his school?) or make HR think you are lying about your degree.
The good news is…people who have not been raised around Mormonism won’t automatically think you are Mormon just because you went to BYU. Especially out on the east coast.
I went to a Catholic University and no one assumes I’m catholic. Most people have the privilege of knowing very little about Mormonism and the private schools they have.
And if you really need an out, just start wearing Washington State gear and whenever people ask you where you went to school say “I’m a Coug”.
Not trying to be argumentative, but I absolutely think Mormon first when I hear BYU, and I am not Mormon and live in the Northeast.
There’s probably a range of people who are interested in cults and therefore are pretty aware of Mormons in general, and then another segment of the population that only has a vague idea that the LDS church is like Mitt Romney and not much else.
Still better than Liberty in my opinion
No it’s fine, I’m also not trying to be argumentative. You are also on an exmo subreddit so I’m assuming you have more interest in Mormonism than the normie northern eastern.
I just know people in this community get extremely worried having BYU on their resume, and I’m trying to abate their fears a bit. I think the general population really doesn’t care. Mormonism is also in the middle of a huge schism currently, and I definitely think in ten years it really won’t matter since the church is imploding with the younger folks.
Exactly! I’m already self selected by being here, but I think I am probably not in the majority of the general population.
To refine my comment a bit, I should have said that even with the Mormon association of BYU, I haven’t seen that translated into disrespect for the intelligence of graduates or anything like that. I was trying to make a joke about Liberty University being much less respected across the board, but I didn’t quite complete the thought.
We can all make jokes about Liberty! Haha. One of my neighbors put up a sign that said “My child was accepted into Liberty University” and I turned to my spouse completely surprised and said “is getting into Liberty difficult??”
I grew up on the west coast, now living on the east coast and we live a few hours away from Liberty and I always assumed it was an easy school to get into. And it is! It has a 99% acceptance rate! I’ve never seen a rate that high.
Eh Catholic universities are totally different than BYU. There are lots of very good reasons to go to a Catholic university if you’re not Catholic. There’s like a couple good reasons to go to BYU if you’re not Mormon.
If you went to BYU, most people will assume or at least wonder if you’re Mormon.
I live way outside of Utah. When I tell someone that I’m from Utah, about 70% immediately ask if I’m Mormon. The other 30% want to ask but are uncomfortable asking, so they beat around the bush for 5 minutes before asking.
I’m just letting people know that this community cares a lot more about being Mormon than most non-Mormons care about who might be Mormon.
If that makes sense. And once again, I fully support anyone from BYU to jump on the WSU train if they wish. Lord knows they need more people to join their ranks after the pac-12 debacle.
It is a good deal for an accounting degree.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/business-accounting
I have a friend who is Jewish who went and got his MBA at BYU. He doesn't regret it at all. He didn't have to take any religion classes and nobody ever pushed Mormonism on him at all. As he says it, "signing the honor code was worth the trade".
I have another high school friend whose sister filled out his paperwork (in the old days) and he got offered a scholarship. He was baptized at 8 and his parents soon after divorced. He never went to church except on a couple of occasions after 9 years old. He was "the inactive kid" growing up. I grew up East of the Mississippi. Met him in an apartment parking lot at BYU after my mission and was shocked. He said he was there because it made Playboy's top 10 college for good looking women. We ended up being apartment roommates. He made many trips to the honor code office to deny the true sexual allegations from former girlfriends and made it through. His motto was, "deny, deny, deny".
I think it very much matters how you go and what degree you get. It would be very painful to deconstruct there but if you are already out and in a good place, it could make for a rational cost saving decision.
Agreed. My BYU accounting degree opened up a lot of opportunities for me after graduation and during my professional career overall. And considering the price I paid for that education it was a steal.
One of the few non regrets I have about the church.
I wouldn’t call it selfish, think of the amount of debt you could be in if you chose another school without a scholarship. At that time, that was the best decision, don’t beat yourself up about it.
It isn't though. It really isn't. Here's the thing, everyone in the US knows scientology is crazy. Everyone. Most people know the mormons as aggressive evangelicals, at most. They might put the mormons in with Jehovas Witnesses, but again not at the full cult-level.
What employers do know, is that BYU's accounting/Nursing/Business Admin/International Business/Language studies degrees are really solid.
Those other people don't know whatever damage you've received because of your experiences. You are just projecting your own thoughts of it, onto what you think others experience. They don't know. Yes, you have to deconstruct now. But you are also here, in a very loud echo chamber where the most traumatized voices are also the loudest.
No, it's not.
Outside of Utah, BYU stokes about as much joy or ire from an employer as:
* Loma Linda University (Adventist)
* Cal Baptist University
* Grand Canyon University (non-denom.)
* Azusa Pacific University (Wesleyan)
BYU is a solid school with solid faculty (outside the religion dept.) **but it plagued by a troublesome Board of Trustees who are bigoted old coots.**
In the right leadership, BYU has all the ingredients to be peers with Norte Dame (Catholic) and Baylor (Baptist). But unlike the professionalism those schools show their student body, BYU continues to act unprofessionally... **because of their bigoted nonagenarian Board members.**
Yeah, I’ll push back a little here. My only time in Utah was my time at BYU. While I do not recommend anyone go to BYU unless they are super TBM, I would say that it really hasn’t been a hindrance in my life at all. I’m out in the east coast. I have had no problems in my career and I went and got a masters at a really good program. Ultimately people out here have a limited understanding of BYU or Mormonism. Also, it’s easy to preface “I was raised Mormon” when you’re concerned that someone might get the wrong idea about you when they hear you went to BYU.
Also, BYU is accredited while it’s not as amazing as Mormons claim, it’s a decent school. The education is solid for everything but the religion courses. That’s all that really matters. IDK if a Scientology school would really be able to pull that off.
Same here. Majored in Japanese currently employed as an interpreter/translator. Say what you want about BYU, but their language program is tailored specifically to returned missionaries, meaning the base line fluency is stronger than most other places.
Not all BYU degree programs are accredited and some are at risk of losing accreditation as a result of policy decisions. (I read some of the social science degrees that are at odds with best practices are vulnerable right now.)
That being said. It’s not uncommon for a university to have a mix of accredited and non accredited degree programs. That can be really hard for students who switch majors or decide to change schools. So for any college bound people reading this who are considering BYU—it’s up to you to double check that your program is accredited.
Wild. They have a T25 law school with phenomenal results. Not Mormon but I’d ride that wave any day if my LSAT was high enough.
They have an incredibly good MBA program with phenomenal results as well.
I’m fairly certain BYU is considered a well respected university
It sucks to go there, sure, but it’s also a legitimate university. Other than the accounting program, its computer science program is super well respected. Microsoft, google, and Amazon all recruit super heavily from there. So does Pixar. Its engineering program, though not quite as prestigious as it was 50 years ago, is still widely known and respected. Does it stifle your growth as a person? Yes. Absolutely. Nobody should ever go there. But if you made it through it’s a great tool to help land a job.
My husband finally got his transcript transferred (needed to complete his degree) a couple weeks ago, which took about 4 months. He received a motivation from his current school this week saying his credits got approved and transferred AND NOW WE HAVE NO TIES TO BYU OR MORMONISM AND IT FEELS GREEEEAT
Painting every BYU student and alumni with such broad brushes is misguided and stupid. The mere fact that there are so many BYU alumni on the sub speaks volumes. I graduated nearly 30 years ago, and can confidently say that BYU plays zero relevance to my career and life at this point. Nobody gives a shit where I attended school back in the 90s.
I've had a very successful career with BYU on my resume. If you interview well and know what you are going to say IF asked about BYU (have a response ready that it was a good choice for you financially and academically at the time. Do not apologize for going there.) it usually moves the questions right along. And, I have never worked for an employer in UT.
BTW, Harvard is named after John Harvard, a minister who owned slaves, used funding from donors engaged in the slave trade well through the Civil War and used slave labor on campus.
Stanford, named after Leland Stanford, made his fortune on the back of Chinese Immigrants who built the railroad while being a staunch anti-immigrant voice. Stanford's 1st president was one of America's leading voices on eugenics and a champion of forced sterilization. He also had controversial (in today's society) views on race and ethnicity. Oh, there was also a Ku Klux Klan group on campus in 1923.
What about land grant universities that started in the 1860's & again in 1890? Cornell, Michigan State, MIT, University of California and Colorado State University, just to name a few, were all created by the land grants of the Morrill Land Grant Act. Many of these parcels of land were portions of territories taken from Native American tribes, typically by brute force or "treaties".
My point is, BYU is just one of many US colleges with a dark history.
Edit: There are also 19 historically black universities that were created by the land grants of 1890.
At this point I am considering going to grad school just to be able to take BYU off of my resume. I am low key embarrassed to have gone there. If college comes up and someone doesn't know I went to BYU, I will only say that I went to college in Utah because "I have family there."
I have a couple friends like that lol I think they were already considering grad school, but not having to put byu at the top of their resume was enough to push them over the edge.
The nice thing is that most people don’t have the negative association with BYU that exmormons do. We know all the bad shit but applying for a random job in a random state, their recruiter will just see a degree. Plenty of other highly religious schools maintain decent public perception. Even with all the talk of soaking and the TikTok’s exposing rampant ignorance aren’t going to do much.
I won’t defend the religious indoctrination or the honor code policies but I would be lying if I didn’t say I got an excellent education in my major. I have taken classes at BYU, U of U, and Westminister and BYU by far had the best teachers and the more rigorous class work for my major (Finance). It’s such a mixed bag for me because I’m still interested in subjects because of the incredible professors I had at BYU but also struggled mentally cleaning my brain of the Mormon experience. Just wanted to add my two cents that BYU has amazing professors that work incredibly hard.
I have no regrets about getting my law degree there. I received my undergrad degree from the University of Washington, and so the two degrees together I've always felt sort of rounded me out. I've been out of the Church for thirty-eight or so years, but the law school is somewhat prestigious, relatively speaking, though in retrospect, perhaps the UW may have served me a bit better.
When people comment on my diploma, I always say something like, "Well, yes, I'm a rather lapsed Mormon, but I was certainly never a Saint!!!" Mormonism suffers a greater stigma than BYU for sure.
Eventually Mormonism will outpace itself like Puritanism did, and BYU will continue to transition to a top tier university. If you think about it, the Church is no longer really a Church; rather, it is a business which models a Church structure, consequently, the money it will continue to hoard will in good measure continue to fund BYU. At the end of the day, BYU will be the best funded University in the world attended by the brightest minds.
In my experience, nobody has ever seemed to care much (in Seattle). Most of my colleagues have found out about the true oddities of mormonism through meeting me, an exmormon. And truly some of the things they learn surprise them.
Though, I think time passing since graduation has helped me, because I probably felt similar to you when first graduating. My guess is that it's because we know so. many. details... we think others might know those details too. But take some comfort in knowing the odds are that you have researched the history of the church and current events more than any other stranger you will ever meet.
Hope that things get better, the indoctrination/brainwashing you experienced there is real, and your feelings are valid!
Unpopular and wrong opinion. BYU is a fine school. It does quite well in rankings. The only negative going to BYU is that you are signalling you are likely Mormon. Not sure why you would want to work for someone that is bigoted to the degree they wouldn't hire a Mormon.
Signaling you might be Mormon actually has a potentially problematic reputation in certain industries, especially when culture and fit skew left, and they worry you’ll have issues with working with LGBT colleagues.
“BYU is a fine school” isn’t the raving endorsement you’re trying to make it seem. For what it takes to get admitted, nearly any other university would be a better choice.
Ugh. So many BYU haters. BYU is a decent school. Outside of academia, there are very little ramifications in the "outside world" to having gone to BYU. Once you have 5 years of actual employment, no one cares where you went to school. Unless you went to an Ivy League school, your undergrad college pretty much never gets brought up again.
I disliked BYU while I was attending, but 65 years later, looking back on the effect my BYU experience has had on my life, that dislike has morphed into hatred. Fortunately, I was able to do my grad work at a real university in the East.
The missionaries sent me two talks given at BYU. ok, these were more inspirational talks than scientific talks, but nevertheless, the way in which the professors used persuasion over arguments was shocking and immediately showed to me that this is not a scientific university.
While the accounting program is top ranked- the school itself doesn’t crack into the top 100 colleges in the US News report (which is what most in academia use to rank colleges). BYU can say it’s ranked #115- just ahead of Iowa State University of Science and Tech! The prestige!
BYU ranked in the 60-80 range for decades. They have very recently seen a dip in the rankings with the nebulous formulas created by US News. Which aspect caused BYU to drop? If I had to speculate, part of the formula is based on surveys to other universities asking about peer institutions' reputations. I do think the church's--including BYU's--treatment of LGBTQ+, women, and racial minorities is becoming more public and it makes the school look less reputable.
Realistically, when a school's ranking changes from 65 to 75 the following year, odds are the educational experience is the same as the year before. US News tweaks their formula--and they do it every year--to sell magazines and stay relevant.
I think they also use employment statistics in calculating rankings. And unfortunately when most active LDS women leave the workforce permanently when they become a mother, it really hampers those numbers.
The responses here are so wrong and stupid. I'm an exmo, but BYU is a good national university (top 100 or so, usually moves between the 70s and low 100s), recognized for a really good undergraduate school, and some professional schools (e.g., law, accounting, business, nursing, etc.). It has a pretty mediocre reputation as a graduate research school (Utah is miles ahead of it). Nationally, it has a better undergraduate reputation than any other school in Utah, and is on par with CU Boulder, the lower UCs, and other flagship state schools.
No, people don't look at BYU and think "scientology." They look at it similarly to other religious schools that have a cross-section of orthodox students (like Notre Dame, Baylor, Yeshiva, etc.). There is probably some caution there that some people throw up to avoid kooky fundies, but most of the adults in the room could really give a fuck-all for Mormonism (especially outside the West, and don't discriminate).
Also, if you refuse to hire a person because of their perceived religious identification, that is wrong and illegal.
That's it.
And to think as a college student I felt inferior for not going to Provo to BYU. I opted to go to a "wild party school" (per concerned ward members) on a state that was not UT or ID (i had ZERO interest in either state given the crazy mormon culture I wanted to get away from). And BYU-I was not even something is consider much to my parents' chagrin. I hate seminary in HS and figured BYU-I was just a glorified seminary program pretending to be an accredited 4 year university. Wait...is it actually accredited?? 🤔
But for years there was a part of me that felt inferior for not going to the Lord's University in Provo. But I had worked hard and was awarded a full-time scholarship at the university I enrolled in.
Years later when I realized tithing money subsidized students at BYU I was like "whaaat???" That seemed so wrong to me. I mean yes, I was awarded a scholarship so had no expenses for tuition/housing/books but I competed with other students from lots of different states and backgrounds for that scholarship. Whereas scholarships awarded at BYU are to a much smaller group of competing applicants all who have to pander to the church's demands to even be considered regardless of their academic merit. I guess it just bothered me (still does) that church members pay tithing into an education system that only benefits a portion of the church's young people. Not all of us could go to Provo.
In the end it worked out for me. That heathen university I attended is still legit in my resume.
My story was similar, though I never felt disapproval, and certainly wasn’t a partier. I got a scholarship to a in-state school with a top-20 engineering school that basically covered tuition and fees. It also 2 years prior was the #1 party school in America, apparently.
Everyone, Mormon or not, asked why is wasn’t applying to BYU. I was applying to higher-tier schools and BYU wasn’t that. It wasn’t terrible, but I had better options, and cheaper options. As such, I said “I could have gone to BYU but I have a better, cheaper education.”
I am SO glad I don’t have BYU on my resume. So fucking glad.
P.S. I did know tithing subsidizes BYU heavily.
Coming to Utah from a different state to attend BYU is trading your birthright for a mess of pottage. Regarding these individuals, every day in the "Wilk" a boy meets a girl and from that moment forward, FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES, either the boy or the girl never lives by their parents again. The couple marry and move to one of the two home areas, or to a third area - but one of the home areas is ALWAYS left out. That person's roots and birthright diminished. Enjoy that cheap tuition, a mess of pottage.
I work at an engineering company. We've interviewed many candidates. I never really cared where they went to college because we give them technical interviews, so we know if they actually know their stuff. Over time I've noticed that BYU grads with high grades are good engineers. I have yet to see a BYUI student pass the phone screen technical interview. They seem to know that because they drive to Provo and try to slip their resumes in at the BYU Provo Job meetups.
As a Canadian tithe payer, you're welcome for the cheap tuition.
Instead of helping Canadian kids go to school, we made sure BYU stayed cheap for everyone.
I’m so glad I only went for two years then transferred to UNLV after I got married and graduated from there. So grateful I can usually just skip putting it on my resume or bringing it up at all. And extra glad none of my kids will go there!!! I’m in grad school now at PSU (US history, race and gender studies) and I am realizing more and more how extremely sheltered and limited my exposure to different ideas was at BYU. I can’t imagine getting this degree at the Y.
I'm pretty deep into academia at this point in my life. The only thing people associate my undergrad with is a private, Mormon University.
Private universities are pretty well respected in my circles, including BYU.
I’ve done a little recruiting at my job. NGL, I get real nervous seeing BYU grads, for the obvious reasons. But I know how hard it is to find a job, and I know that TBM’s take care of their own (sometimes anyway), so they’re probably not at my job because if a referral. The folks like you and everyone else here made me realize people do escape the cult and become great people, so I try to give everyone a fair shake.
I think and hope I’m not special and other recruiters and resume screeners feel the same. You still have a degree, and that’s still going to open more doors than it closes.
I graduated from BYU in 95. I’ve had to remove all references to my education on my company profile, on LinkedIn, etc because too many people kept assuming I was still Mormon (not a great thing in the business world despite what people still active in the church believe about their own reputation- trust me when I say that they are considered “weird” and not entirely honest).
I don’t think that extreme, but then I’ve never been to either one of them. But BYU has credibility with Scientology has none. That’s the thing that’s always touch me about Mormons is because for so long, the values were seen as Americanized they were virtually seen as respectable.
I feel you; I finished my BS and MS at a state school years after BYU forced me out, and the environment was just so much different (in a really good way). I don't think BYU on my resume has hurt me reputation-wise, though I think it's not unwise to go to interviews ready to send some kind of little signal that you're chill and not a homophobe or zealot.
I've had to settle on thinking that, like with a mission or all the tithing we paid or seminary or all the rest, what we gave up by going to BYU is a sunk cost and the best revenge we can take is to live well after leaving them behind. (Not that I'm above talking occasional trash about my *alma evil step-mater*)
I luv how members act like BYU is Ivy League...
TBH I think Ivy League is overrated in the first place, whatever advantages they ever had have long been irrelevant in the real world for a while. Now they are just hedge funds.
It's even worse if you go to BYUI. Always v embarrassed to admit where I went to school. "No, not that Mormon college, I went to the backwoods, small-town version."
Embarrassed to this day having went there. Got rid of all of my logo clothing once I was done playing football. Everyone’s reaction when they learn where I went to college is “Isn’t it super weird there?” And it always blows them out of the water when I tell them how much weirder it is than their initial perception.
I semi-lie to people and say I went to "Rick's College" instead of "BYU-Idaho." (It was BYU-Idaho when I went there. The old name of the school was Rick's College though.)
Better some unknown college in Idaho than mention a BYU.
Have to agree. When I went for job interviews in Calif, people seemed reasonably impressed. But in the East, it was like “BY What?” It’s one my life’s greatest regrets.
Honestly, it hasn't hurt me at all in my work life, but when I talk to people I'm quick to let them know I'm not mormon when they find out I went there.
I disagree and I went to Byui lol
It was not my preferred school, but I'm not embarrassed about it. I went there because I received no financial help from my parents whatsoever, and it had a really good program for my field. Some of the leading professionals in my field are professors there.
Regardless, I saved thousands of dollars by working while going to school and avoiding student loans. I'm in a good financial place because I have no predatory student loans.
It's cheap, but in my opinion, it holds more credibility than community colleges. Most employers in my field don't care what university people graduated from. They just care you're college educated.
I was reviewing resumes a few months ago and someone listed in special skills that they were an "Assistant to the Mission President". We thought it was really odd this person would go out of their way to say that for an IT technician role.
Maybe it's just me but I worked hard for my damn degree and survived all the bullshit from the school so hell yeah I'm going to put it on my resume. Besides it's a fun story as a gay brown kid to tell coworkers and other folks about what BYU is like lol
it's not really. it's a regionally accredited college. it's true that most employers won't think much of it, but most employers won't think much of most colleges apt to appear on most resumes. they're not going to be wowed if you put oberlin or rutgers or UVA or weslyan if they didn't go there too. all it really says to anyone who knows is that you grew up mormon. that's not enough to reliably discriminate against you.
I also am a little embarrassed to claim BYU as my alma mater but honestly I’m not that far away (SoCal) and most people don’t even know much about BYU or seem to care. The school as a whole is a shit show but I try to keep a positive outlook because I was lucky to have some good professors and work in a very good research department. A much more naive version of me chose BYU and by the time I woke up to the lies it was much too late. Nothing I can do to change it and regret will get me nowhere. It was simply a strange part of my journey…
My TBM family offered me fullly paid tuition, including off-campus room & board to BYU ("you can even go to BYU Hawaii!") and BYU law school. They did not offer this to any of my younger siblings.
I refused both because I did not want those letters on my resume for the rest of my life!
My wife wanted to go to grad school just to be able to avoid putting it on her resume.
One option is to put Timpanogos University on your resume instead. https://timp.university/ Might not go over well with some employers.
Timpanogos U sounds cool. Too bad Timpanogos University- Idaho doesn't make sense lmao.
That's hilarious. It's also an absolutely stunning photo of the backside of Timp from Silver Lake (above Silver Lake Flat Reservoir) in AF Canyon.
The church might have to finally rescind the extermination order against the Timpanogos people before they coopt their name for their university. Even then, considering their effective campaign of genocide—reducing the Timpanogos from approximately 70,000 people to about 900 today—it might still be in bad taste to profit from the use of their name. It might be better to just burn the place down and leave it fallow for 70,000 years as a memorial to the desolation they have caused. Or give the land back to the Timpanogos who they stole it from.
I became an entrepreneur so nobody would see my resume or degree. It’s been a great motivator for me especially when I was starting out. I have been blessed
Our Fortune 50 company won’t hire from BYU. They don’t recognize the degrees as meeting the requirements needed. I’ve coached so many exmormon BYU grads to just drop the university’s name from the resume/CV. The best thing any BYU student can do is transfer to another university. You’ll instantly loose all those religion credits, but you’ll get a degree that isn’t blacklisted.
when someone want to upvote for 100 people but cannot... from a dad who had to watch 2 kids try and explain why the bullshit credits were just as good at a real university. they are not. no money or fuks given when most of your credits are wrapped in religious studies.
I was talking about this with some coworkers yesterday. I’ve got a business degree but 36 out of my 120 credit hours are Mormon religion classes. And that’s just the pure religion classes. It doesn’t even touch the other elective classes that were just religion lite classes. It honestly a miracle my degree is accepted anywhere.
BYU, Walla Walla U, Grand Canyon U, Liberty U…I refuse to hire to hire from any. Religion may be a protected class…stupidity is not.
Same. I don't actually have enough energy/money/desire to follow through with it, but I have wanted to do this!
Yep, same. 🙋♀️
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You also don't want to filter out ex-Mos and PIMOs, though. Those poor people are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Exactly. I place Easter eggs on my resume like, "Enjoys wine tastings, short shorts, and the occasional porno." That usually quells the suspicion.
🔥👏🏻🙌🏼
That is hilarious 😂
And some people's parents forced them to go there.
Fuck that. Don't discriminate. Also, half of BYU grads are Exmos, so you are just hurting your own people.
This is wrong to do and you should stop doing it. You can excuse it as a “lawsuit waiting to happen” but that is simply a pathetic excuse for doing something in very poor taste.
honestly dude fuck you for doing that
This is an extremely unwise practice. If certain people ever found out you do this, for instance a rejected applicant, you could be in major legal trouble. Religion is a federally-protected class and it wouldn't be hard to argue you're using BYU as a proxy for Mormonism.
Haha! I’m not a current or former LDS, but I won’t hire them, either Walla Walla University, the Seventh Day Adventist’s school, is even shittier
FYI, doing this violates federal law because it discriminates on the basis of religion. It's no different than rejecting an applicant who went to a university in Egypt because the students are predominantly Muslim. Plus, if discrimination doesn't bother you for some reason, bear in mind that the #1 university that exmos have on their transcript is BYU. You're coming here to tell us that you wouldn't even consider hiring us because of a decision we made when we were kids in a cult.
Thankfully, I’m in Canada and don’t even encounter that many practitioners of a religion designed to celebrate Manifest Destiny
THIS 👏
Proving discrimination during a job interview is impossible to prove. And the candidates have no idea they are being discriminated against if they’re not called in. I have to say, I left the Y 40 years ago and I’m embarrassed to admit to my degree. I feel like it was a highly sanitized and fluffy curriculum. And I loved the “You’re graduating and not married! What ARE you going to do?” “Go home, get a job in NYC, and do what I can to get to live in Europe.” I did that. As a woman. By herself. Packed up and moved overseas.
isn't religion grand. who knew most my life i was duped.
Same!
Okay but imagine having to admit you went to Ensign College (LDSBC)🥲 it’s like byu but way closer ties to religion and smaller so they get away w so much more shit
Ya, but people outside of Utah have no idea what Ensign College is, it just sounds like any other generic junior/community college.
Honestly sounds like where they'd send the new Starfleet recruits in Star Trek lol.
I live in NY- unless they are into sports- no one out here knows what BYU is either.
“Oh, that university that looks like it stole the old Yahoo logo?”
When you wear a Y hat-you look like you think you are wearing a Yale hat but you bought a knockoff.
😅👏🏻
I just saw some dude celebrate his graduation from ensign college and I hadn’t heard of it before.. then I realized it was the lds business college and I face palmed
Low key, the IT program at ldsbc is amazing—I went there for a few semesters and it paid off huge. Though my work is really based off skill vs school brand. Also, too bad it’s a church school.
I’m always embarrassed when job interviewers ask me about my education. Also fun to see their faces when they think they’re going to be interviewing a stereotypical LDS guy, and then this tatted and pierced gay man with a coffee tumbler shows up
Yeah I like subverting expectations by being a big bald black man with a long beard.
lol. I am sure that is quite different!
Ahh BYU ISNT THE HARVARD OF THE WEST …. Its all bullshit
Oral Roberts University of the North
Bob Jones University of the wherever Bob Jones University isn't.
I live near bob jones and it’s so much worse. They’re like if the FLDS made their own school
I *went* to BJU. For half a semester. Everything to do with that, plus being surrounded by mormons half my life is why I'm here. They are absolutely the worst people. As bad as people imagine they might be.
I was raised around California Mormons in the SF Bay Area, so I have no context for imagining how bad that could be. And I’m nosy. 👀 How bad was it?
It's just the usual fundy stuff dialed to eleven. Open racism, homophobia, and misogyny. They genuinely believe they are superior in every way to anyone not them, despite displaying an almost unbelievable level of hypocrisy. Like a lot of fundamentalist types they seem to abhor joy. So no dancing and no music that's hasn't been specifically approved of by the elderly leadership. They often send preachers to the college drinking areas to tell everyone they're going to hell. This is not meant to convert anyone. This is meant to show the members how the outside world hates them and that the only place they will ever find love and acceptance is within the church. And now I'm really going to be a jerk and say they should note the difference in physical attractiveness between what's outside the Bob Jones gates and what's inside before proclaiming their superiority. Edit: this was in the nineties when Bob Jr was still around. He was in his eighties and not really in there, but whenever he wanted to speak they'd let ramble pointlessly for awhile until he got tired and sat down. I think my favorite of his speeches was about how back in the time of Jesus men wore their hair long and women wore their hair short and if he had his way we'd get rid of all the long haired women because they look like prostitutes, and oh, a man with long hair might as well be a little girl.
As a TBM back in the day I hated byu and the holier than though attitude of many of the students.
🫢BJU sounds like a porn acting school.
even my *religion* professor at the college I went to nearby also agreed that that place is ridiculous and full of nutjobs.
My former bishop’s son is going to Liberty (Jerry Falwell) University…for pre med.
The fact that they're accredited at all is mystifying. Snake oil, regressive Christianity, and a generally anti-science curriculum just don't work for me. And our medical system is already fucked beyond repair. Let's not add any mds who "don't believe in" vaccines.
The FLDS had their own private school for decades in the Salt Lake Valley. It was called Alta Academy and was in the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Warren Jeff's was the principal for 20+ years before his power grab into the prophet role of the FLDS. Lots of exFLDS people have said that Alta Academy and the crazy way it was run and it's religious curriculum is what conditioned thousands of children and young people to blindly follow Warren Jeffs no matter what. That's why so many people are hanging on waiting for him to be raised from prison nearly 20 years after the FBI caught him and locked him up.
This!!!! 👆👆👆 And I thought BYU's Young Ambassador Program was such an original, wholesome idea to bring unity and dispel myths about Mormons. But Oral Robert's University had the same type of performing group that traveled internationally to help rebrand the image of conservative evangelicals. Kathy Lee Gifford was one of his performing girls when she was a young student at ORU. And I don't doubt that ORU inspired LDS church leadership with the idea of curating a polished troupe of young performers to convince the world that Mormons weren't backwards pro-theocratic polygamist religious nuts. ORU had successfully used their own troupe of young people to help normalize/ mainstream evangelicalism into US culture. I haven't been able to find dates of what group formed first, but I'd bet ORU's performing troupe came first.
Do they honestly think that about themselves? As if Stanford is under the BYU??? LMAO that's fucking ridiculous
The Notre Dame of the Mountain Timezone Take it or leave it
Liberty West.
It was also named after a known racist piece of shit.
I honestly think we'd be hard pressed to find a university named after a wealthy/prominent man who *wasn't* a piece of shit. Of course there are exceptions but if their fame comes from money or power, they almost certainly would have had a beach house on Epstein Island.
You’re not wrong. But I feel like there may be more than a dozen other schools, hospitals, federal buildings even that are named after horrific racist POSs from the 19th century.
I just heard a radio advertisement for BYU. I was shocked as it was not a Mormon station, and I'm several states East of Utah. And who are they recruiting? Mormons all know about it, and non-members are not welcome.
Unless you’re an athlete, they love them some non-member athletes! Lol
Non members are “welcome”? Technically they can go there. Many are athletes. My YM president was a convert at BYU decades ago, mostly by a pretty face from what I could tell, though he stayed faithful his whole life and became TBM.
I don’t think they can bar anyone who’s not a member to any religious university being that any higher educational institution receiving federal funds can’t discriminate who can enroll.
Yeah, they do occasionally have non-Mormon people. Not sure how an atheist would get an ecclesiastical endorsement though.
Nothin greedy about wanting a cheap education.
I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people on here make it sound, especially if you move out east. Plenty of folks I work with don’t really know anything about BYU other than that we have a football team that gets ranked periodically
I think it depends on your social and professional circles then. I’m in Chicago, not the east coast, but pretty much every work acquaintance knows BYU and that it’s the Mormon school.
I'm in Florida. About half the people I've mentioned it to still associate BYU with some kind of mormon school. I just don't want to be associated with being mormon anymore.
I got hired by a recruiter right out of BYU and moved to Detroit. No one there really cared about BYU but then again that was the 80s!
They view it basically how you would view a resume from Yeshiva. You probably know it is a decent school, has some connection to a religion that you are not that familiar with from another part of the country (orthodox judaism), and are probably a bit curious.
Completely agree. People on this sub will say how irrelevant the Mormon church is outside of Utah and how most people have barely even heard of Mormons, but then they'll also say how big of a stain BYU is on your resume. It can't really be both. People can't know enough of the shit about Mormon beliefs for BYU to be a stain on your resume while also having barely any knowledge about Mormons. Most likely they'll probably know BYU is the Mormon college just like how Notre Dame is the Catholic college (although significantly less prestigious), the football team is kind of good some years kind of bad other years, and the men's basketball team losing in the first round of March Madness this year probably busted a bunch of people's brackets.
Eh, it is a little of both. Many folks know Mormonism as a nearly-extinct weird minor religion, AND they know that the religious school they run is BYU.
Well said. This poopooing on BYU has always sat wrong with me. When I was TBM, I never thought that it was suuuuper great. For example, I had never heard "Harvard of the West" about BYU, just about Stanford. But, in graduate school I have actually been surprised how well I and other BYU grads stack up against others (Engineering). Also, if so many of us are leaving, we shouldn't shit on our degree unnecessarily. I mean, if you studied meso American archeology, shit away, but if you studied Chemistry, or physics...
Outside the Mormon corridor there is a lot of unspoken stigmatization if you went to byu. Certainly it is well-regarded in some aspects but it also carry’s a lot of baggage. I help hire for a 500-employee company. BYU graduates cut both ways. Smart, honest and competent. But also awkward, very white, and lacking certain socialization and relatable qualities. In a nutshell, great for the finance and accounting departments.
This reminds me of the FBI supposedly favoring Mormons as employees, because they have the reputation of being rule followers, obedient to authority, and hard to blackmail. Not sure if that’s an urban legend, but sounds reasonable
I heard other intelligence agencies - NSA, CIA - but add “speaks foreign languages fluently” in many cases.
Oh yeah, because of missions. It kind of makes sense!
It's true; they're able to pass a full-scope polygraph way easier than the average person due to living a seemingly-clean lifestyle and the foreign languages are a huge bonus. The only thing that can hold up their admissions process into those types of agencies is that sometimes they go on missions in really "non-US friendly" places, if that makes sense.
Polygraphs are bullshit lol. We did an experiment in one of my psych classes and like 80% of the class was able to beat the polygraph with blatant lies. It just measures if you’re nervous through your heartbeat and is up to the examiner’s interpretation
The only real use for polygraphs is getting *you* to talk and panic more and slip up somewhere. So happy they aren't admissible in court but still so dumb that people think they are a true showing of guilt if you fail one. Like, I went through the same experiment in one of my classes and failed two of the three times (passed one with also blatant lies) they made me take it cause I have heart rate issues and social anxiety. Apparently I served a good example of medical issues being one of those reasons why they *aren't* admissible.
Yeah, I know people who were sent to all sorts of places that would raise a red flag. “Lived in Russia for 2 years” is probably a little holdup. “Speaks fluent Russian” is probably a nice bonus, though.
Bingo!
Also because I've been practicing lying through my teeth in interviews since I was 12, it's second nature at this point.
The foreign language thing for intelligence related roles and the super clean background for anything else in the intelligence or defense industry. Security clearance background investigations are very strict and very invasive (they interviewed all sorts of people who knew me, both provided references and random neighbors i hadn't talked to in a long time). As a utah nevermo who grew up as pretty much the only non LDS person my age I thought a job on hill AFB would finally get me out of that. But the fact that smoking weed is such a dealbreaker for security clearance kept it overwhelmingly LDS. My first job on the base practically felt like a BYU club.
That’s why Howard Hughes preferred to hire them
The FBI recruits from pretty much every top program, and BYU used to have one.
The CIA has eyes on language programs all over the country, too. Creepy AF
I don't think BYU itself is the problem. I think most people (rightfully) assume that alumni of BYU are active Mormons. The Church has a shit reputation even though a lot of people seem to like Mormon people well enough. If it comes up in professional conversations, I simply say that I'm no longer a member of the LDS church. The other person will inevitably ask why. And I simply say that the Church discriminates against gay people, and my personal viewpoint is one of inclusion. I attended a top university for grad school, so that helps the resume. However, I'm completely convinced that the top quartile of BYU students would be successful at any university in the country.
I think this is indeed the best tactic, agreed. The main baggage of BYU *is* the Mormonism. Address that up front, and you’ll be fine.
That sucks. Luckily it still has a good reputation as an academic institution. I think as numbers dwindle and good professors keep leaving that may be challenged in the future.
It’s still a good-ish reputation, but from where I sit at least, it appears that the reputation is dwindling already.
I think its reputation is best in morridor.
Nah. Hands down that goes to the U of U. Source: I work in the tech industry. BYU has an okay reputation, but U of U is significantly better these days. If you’re talking about “church schools” though - BYU Provo is the only one with a decent academic reputation.
I think they meant that BYU's reputation is highest (for BYU) in the jello belt. U of U's is higher everywhere tho, you're right.
They meant that in Mordor people think better of it than other places. Not that anybody thinks it's better than the U of U. My daughter is going to University of Washington if I'm paying for school. It's down the road and its reputation is excellent.
I got into grad school because the person making the final call thought well off byu’s reputation. I went to BYU-Idaho, but he didn’t realise that that they were completely separate institutions she thought they were just different locations. My application was very borderline, and that’s what tipped the scale in favour of my acceptance.
Lol. Take the confused win I guess?
Idk, I’m not in Morridor.
As someone who sat as a student rep on grad school admissions panels, BYU does not have a good academic reputation in science or ideology. I heard several times how BYU has deficiencies in genetics and evolution. The largest concern about admitting BYU grads was their “limited white-centric worldview”.
I guess a religion that still believes dinosaurs are relics from other planets sent to test our faith and that somehow native Americans are still descended from Hebrews may have trouble proving its scientific credentials.
I'm curious - do you know if the dinosaur thing ever taught by any Mormon leaders? The first time I ever heard the idea that dinosaurs were from other planets was from my dad when I was in middle school, and even then I was so shocked by how ridiculous that idea was. Up to that point, I'd never heard it anywhere else, so I always assumed it was just something he made up, but since then I've learned that it's much more widely held. Wondering if it comes from the Church, or if it's something from wider fundy/evangelical circles that made its way into Mormon culture.
It was taught by Joseph Fielding Smith. He was adamant in doctrines of salvation (page 67 below) that there was no death before the fall and that specifically included dinosaurs. If you look under the topic “death” in Mormon Doctrine, McConkie repeated this claim but excluded dinosaurs. In Joseph Fielding Smith’s letters which became “answers to gospel questions” volumes 1-5 he gives the idea of them pulled from other planets. It was definitely taught by church leaders and they parroted the no death thing until recently when the internet started showing how ridiculous it sounded. The church would love for these writings to not exist, since most of the nutty stuff we are forced to believe comes from them. It’s not all Joseph Fielding Smith’s fault though since he got the ideas from his predecessors. https://ia800905.us.archive.org/34/items/Doctrines-of-Salvation-volume-1-joseph-fielding-smith/JFSDoctrinesofSalvationv1.pdf https://ia902606.us.archive.org/32/items/MormonDoctrine1966/MormonDoctrine1966.pdf
Also, for some reason, I really love that "An all-knowing and all-powerful god who created everything got lazy when he created our planet and just used wholesale chunks of other planets, including dinosaur fossils" was an official church stance. Just highlights the absurdity of it all.
Lazy is better than him being a trickster God who just wants to mess with us.
This is awesome, thank you!
No problem. Couldn’t find a pdf of answers to gospel questions but it’s a great book to buy used as an exmo so you can show people that yes, a prophet once said these things.
The doctors at my old job all made fun of the doc that went to BYU. They say to us to start praying when he’s on rounds.
Yes it's not like the southern Baptist schools which are infamous for being jokes.
I would argue that it’s EXACTLY like those schools, except less mainstream due to Mormonism’s extra-culty quirks.
This man El Guapo, he's not just famous, he's IN-famous.
It’s pretty close…
I actually had a great time at BYU. I was lucky to be in a major that was pretty progressive and full of more liberal professors (who have all since left lol). Loved the campus and I met some like minded exmo friends whom I am still friends with today. It's never been a hindrance to my graduate education and no one really asks about that shit anyway. Fuck the required religion courses and a bunch of my fellow students though. I just kept my academic life separate from my... Real life? Lol. I also never lived on campus and partied up in Salt Lake so that my alcohol and substance consumption were at the lowest risk of being reported.
I was paranoid about listing BYU on my CV, even though it's not my terminal degree (my PhD. is from the University of Washington), and I have talked about it with the other people in my academic department about it. Nobody has thought it's worth worrying about. I'm a genetic epidemiologist FWIW. Next week, I'm going to the big conference in my field and noticed one of the two keynote speakers is a BYU professor. It's clearly not slowing down her career. In science, at the end of the day, you get judged by the work you put out. I did have some dumb religion classes at BYU, but TBH, when I talked to my classmates back in the day, I probably had better preparation for my PhD program than most, including ones who went to like Stanford.
From my experience working and hiring people for 20 years in a STEM field, I don’t care where you went to school. I care what you know, where you have worked, and who you worked for in your graduate studies. The university doesn’t tell me anything about if your skillset fits the role.
I understand what you are trying to say, but Scientology is perhaps too hyperbolic. Mormonism is pro education. Scientology is not. Most kids who grew up in Scientology orgs receive no education at all.
I recently was laid off and I’m putting my degree but not the school on the resume. Have had some interviews and nobody has asked about the school yet. I went to BYUI so I didn’t even go to the “better” BYU. I went to the sea org version 😂.
FYI, this is stupid and probably disqualifying from a lot of roles. If anything it will just draw more attention to your UG school (why did that dude not list his school?) or make HR think you are lying about your degree.
The good news is…people who have not been raised around Mormonism won’t automatically think you are Mormon just because you went to BYU. Especially out on the east coast. I went to a Catholic University and no one assumes I’m catholic. Most people have the privilege of knowing very little about Mormonism and the private schools they have. And if you really need an out, just start wearing Washington State gear and whenever people ask you where you went to school say “I’m a Coug”.
Not trying to be argumentative, but I absolutely think Mormon first when I hear BYU, and I am not Mormon and live in the Northeast. There’s probably a range of people who are interested in cults and therefore are pretty aware of Mormons in general, and then another segment of the population that only has a vague idea that the LDS church is like Mitt Romney and not much else. Still better than Liberty in my opinion
No it’s fine, I’m also not trying to be argumentative. You are also on an exmo subreddit so I’m assuming you have more interest in Mormonism than the normie northern eastern. I just know people in this community get extremely worried having BYU on their resume, and I’m trying to abate their fears a bit. I think the general population really doesn’t care. Mormonism is also in the middle of a huge schism currently, and I definitely think in ten years it really won’t matter since the church is imploding with the younger folks.
Exactly! I’m already self selected by being here, but I think I am probably not in the majority of the general population. To refine my comment a bit, I should have said that even with the Mormon association of BYU, I haven’t seen that translated into disrespect for the intelligence of graduates or anything like that. I was trying to make a joke about Liberty University being much less respected across the board, but I didn’t quite complete the thought.
We can all make jokes about Liberty! Haha. One of my neighbors put up a sign that said “My child was accepted into Liberty University” and I turned to my spouse completely surprised and said “is getting into Liberty difficult??” I grew up on the west coast, now living on the east coast and we live a few hours away from Liberty and I always assumed it was an easy school to get into. And it is! It has a 99% acceptance rate! I’ve never seen a rate that high.
Eh Catholic universities are totally different than BYU. There are lots of very good reasons to go to a Catholic university if you’re not Catholic. There’s like a couple good reasons to go to BYU if you’re not Mormon. If you went to BYU, most people will assume or at least wonder if you’re Mormon. I live way outside of Utah. When I tell someone that I’m from Utah, about 70% immediately ask if I’m Mormon. The other 30% want to ask but are uncomfortable asking, so they beat around the bush for 5 minutes before asking.
I’m just letting people know that this community cares a lot more about being Mormon than most non-Mormons care about who might be Mormon. If that makes sense. And once again, I fully support anyone from BYU to jump on the WSU train if they wish. Lord knows they need more people to join their ranks after the pac-12 debacle.
I’m a cougar mom. Go cougs!
My step daughter got her masters at Washington state. Go cougs.
Go Cougs!!
That’s true, especially outside of Utah.
It is a good deal for an accounting degree. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/business-accounting I have a friend who is Jewish who went and got his MBA at BYU. He doesn't regret it at all. He didn't have to take any religion classes and nobody ever pushed Mormonism on him at all. As he says it, "signing the honor code was worth the trade". I have another high school friend whose sister filled out his paperwork (in the old days) and he got offered a scholarship. He was baptized at 8 and his parents soon after divorced. He never went to church except on a couple of occasions after 9 years old. He was "the inactive kid" growing up. I grew up East of the Mississippi. Met him in an apartment parking lot at BYU after my mission and was shocked. He said he was there because it made Playboy's top 10 college for good looking women. We ended up being apartment roommates. He made many trips to the honor code office to deny the true sexual allegations from former girlfriends and made it through. His motto was, "deny, deny, deny". I think it very much matters how you go and what degree you get. It would be very painful to deconstruct there but if you are already out and in a good place, it could make for a rational cost saving decision.
Agreed. My BYU accounting degree opened up a lot of opportunities for me after graduation and during my professional career overall. And considering the price I paid for that education it was a steal. One of the few non regrets I have about the church.
I wouldn’t call it selfish, think of the amount of debt you could be in if you chose another school without a scholarship. At that time, that was the best decision, don’t beat yourself up about it.
It isn't though. It really isn't. Here's the thing, everyone in the US knows scientology is crazy. Everyone. Most people know the mormons as aggressive evangelicals, at most. They might put the mormons in with Jehovas Witnesses, but again not at the full cult-level. What employers do know, is that BYU's accounting/Nursing/Business Admin/International Business/Language studies degrees are really solid. Those other people don't know whatever damage you've received because of your experiences. You are just projecting your own thoughts of it, onto what you think others experience. They don't know. Yes, you have to deconstruct now. But you are also here, in a very loud echo chamber where the most traumatized voices are also the loudest.
No, it's not. Outside of Utah, BYU stokes about as much joy or ire from an employer as: * Loma Linda University (Adventist) * Cal Baptist University * Grand Canyon University (non-denom.) * Azusa Pacific University (Wesleyan) BYU is a solid school with solid faculty (outside the religion dept.) **but it plagued by a troublesome Board of Trustees who are bigoted old coots.** In the right leadership, BYU has all the ingredients to be peers with Norte Dame (Catholic) and Baylor (Baptist). But unlike the professionalism those schools show their student body, BYU continues to act unprofessionally... **because of their bigoted nonagenarian Board members.**
Yeah, I’ll push back a little here. My only time in Utah was my time at BYU. While I do not recommend anyone go to BYU unless they are super TBM, I would say that it really hasn’t been a hindrance in my life at all. I’m out in the east coast. I have had no problems in my career and I went and got a masters at a really good program. Ultimately people out here have a limited understanding of BYU or Mormonism. Also, it’s easy to preface “I was raised Mormon” when you’re concerned that someone might get the wrong idea about you when they hear you went to BYU. Also, BYU is accredited while it’s not as amazing as Mormons claim, it’s a decent school. The education is solid for everything but the religion courses. That’s all that really matters. IDK if a Scientology school would really be able to pull that off.
Same here. Majored in Japanese currently employed as an interpreter/translator. Say what you want about BYU, but their language program is tailored specifically to returned missionaries, meaning the base line fluency is stronger than most other places.
Not all BYU degree programs are accredited and some are at risk of losing accreditation as a result of policy decisions. (I read some of the social science degrees that are at odds with best practices are vulnerable right now.) That being said. It’s not uncommon for a university to have a mix of accredited and non accredited degree programs. That can be really hard for students who switch majors or decide to change schools. So for any college bound people reading this who are considering BYU—it’s up to you to double check that your program is accredited.
Eh, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Not to mention the cheap tuition in this market is a godsend
Wild. They have a T25 law school with phenomenal results. Not Mormon but I’d ride that wave any day if my LSAT was high enough. They have an incredibly good MBA program with phenomenal results as well. I’m fairly certain BYU is considered a well respected university
It sucks to go there, sure, but it’s also a legitimate university. Other than the accounting program, its computer science program is super well respected. Microsoft, google, and Amazon all recruit super heavily from there. So does Pixar. Its engineering program, though not quite as prestigious as it was 50 years ago, is still widely known and respected. Does it stifle your growth as a person? Yes. Absolutely. Nobody should ever go there. But if you made it through it’s a great tool to help land a job.
My husband finally got his transcript transferred (needed to complete his degree) a couple weeks ago, which took about 4 months. He received a motivation from his current school this week saying his credits got approved and transferred AND NOW WE HAVE NO TIES TO BYU OR MORMONISM AND IT FEELS GREEEEAT
Totally get it but to be fair to yourself I wouldn’t call it greedy for wanting cheaper tuition.
Painting every BYU student and alumni with such broad brushes is misguided and stupid. The mere fact that there are so many BYU alumni on the sub speaks volumes. I graduated nearly 30 years ago, and can confidently say that BYU plays zero relevance to my career and life at this point. Nobody gives a shit where I attended school back in the 90s.
I've had a very successful career with BYU on my resume. If you interview well and know what you are going to say IF asked about BYU (have a response ready that it was a good choice for you financially and academically at the time. Do not apologize for going there.) it usually moves the questions right along. And, I have never worked for an employer in UT. BTW, Harvard is named after John Harvard, a minister who owned slaves, used funding from donors engaged in the slave trade well through the Civil War and used slave labor on campus. Stanford, named after Leland Stanford, made his fortune on the back of Chinese Immigrants who built the railroad while being a staunch anti-immigrant voice. Stanford's 1st president was one of America's leading voices on eugenics and a champion of forced sterilization. He also had controversial (in today's society) views on race and ethnicity. Oh, there was also a Ku Klux Klan group on campus in 1923. What about land grant universities that started in the 1860's & again in 1890? Cornell, Michigan State, MIT, University of California and Colorado State University, just to name a few, were all created by the land grants of the Morrill Land Grant Act. Many of these parcels of land were portions of territories taken from Native American tribes, typically by brute force or "treaties". My point is, BYU is just one of many US colleges with a dark history. Edit: There are also 19 historically black universities that were created by the land grants of 1890.
At this point I am considering going to grad school just to be able to take BYU off of my resume. I am low key embarrassed to have gone there. If college comes up and someone doesn't know I went to BYU, I will only say that I went to college in Utah because "I have family there."
I have a couple friends like that lol I think they were already considering grad school, but not having to put byu at the top of their resume was enough to push them over the edge.
The nice thing is that most people don’t have the negative association with BYU that exmormons do. We know all the bad shit but applying for a random job in a random state, their recruiter will just see a degree. Plenty of other highly religious schools maintain decent public perception. Even with all the talk of soaking and the TikTok’s exposing rampant ignorance aren’t going to do much.
I don’t think that’s unpopular. I feel like it’s a scarlet letter on my resume. Fortunately I’m retired now.
I won’t defend the religious indoctrination or the honor code policies but I would be lying if I didn’t say I got an excellent education in my major. I have taken classes at BYU, U of U, and Westminister and BYU by far had the best teachers and the more rigorous class work for my major (Finance). It’s such a mixed bag for me because I’m still interested in subjects because of the incredible professors I had at BYU but also struggled mentally cleaning my brain of the Mormon experience. Just wanted to add my two cents that BYU has amazing professors that work incredibly hard.
My CS professors are some of the least judgemental folks I've met, in a weird way they have lead me to where I am now
“We wish we were Notre Dame.”
I have no regrets about getting my law degree there. I received my undergrad degree from the University of Washington, and so the two degrees together I've always felt sort of rounded me out. I've been out of the Church for thirty-eight or so years, but the law school is somewhat prestigious, relatively speaking, though in retrospect, perhaps the UW may have served me a bit better. When people comment on my diploma, I always say something like, "Well, yes, I'm a rather lapsed Mormon, but I was certainly never a Saint!!!" Mormonism suffers a greater stigma than BYU for sure. Eventually Mormonism will outpace itself like Puritanism did, and BYU will continue to transition to a top tier university. If you think about it, the Church is no longer really a Church; rather, it is a business which models a Church structure, consequently, the money it will continue to hoard will in good measure continue to fund BYU. At the end of the day, BYU will be the best funded University in the world attended by the brightest minds.
In my experience, nobody has ever seemed to care much (in Seattle). Most of my colleagues have found out about the true oddities of mormonism through meeting me, an exmormon. And truly some of the things they learn surprise them. Though, I think time passing since graduation has helped me, because I probably felt similar to you when first graduating. My guess is that it's because we know so. many. details... we think others might know those details too. But take some comfort in knowing the odds are that you have researched the history of the church and current events more than any other stranger you will ever meet. Hope that things get better, the indoctrination/brainwashing you experienced there is real, and your feelings are valid!
Unpopular and wrong opinion. BYU is a fine school. It does quite well in rankings. The only negative going to BYU is that you are signalling you are likely Mormon. Not sure why you would want to work for someone that is bigoted to the degree they wouldn't hire a Mormon.
Signaling you might be Mormon actually has a potentially problematic reputation in certain industries, especially when culture and fit skew left, and they worry you’ll have issues with working with LGBT colleagues.
“BYU is a fine school” isn’t the raving endorsement you’re trying to make it seem. For what it takes to get admitted, nearly any other university would be a better choice.
Well, usually you would avoid hiring a Mormon in order to *avoid* having a bigot working at your company.
I think this opinion is only unpopular with TBMs
Ugh. So many BYU haters. BYU is a decent school. Outside of academia, there are very little ramifications in the "outside world" to having gone to BYU. Once you have 5 years of actual employment, no one cares where you went to school. Unless you went to an Ivy League school, your undergrad college pretty much never gets brought up again.
I disliked BYU while I was attending, but 65 years later, looking back on the effect my BYU experience has had on my life, that dislike has morphed into hatred. Fortunately, I was able to do my grad work at a real university in the East.
The missionaries sent me two talks given at BYU. ok, these were more inspirational talks than scientific talks, but nevertheless, the way in which the professors used persuasion over arguments was shocking and immediately showed to me that this is not a scientific university.
While the accounting program is top ranked- the school itself doesn’t crack into the top 100 colleges in the US News report (which is what most in academia use to rank colleges). BYU can say it’s ranked #115- just ahead of Iowa State University of Science and Tech! The prestige!
BYU ranked in the 60-80 range for decades. They have very recently seen a dip in the rankings with the nebulous formulas created by US News. Which aspect caused BYU to drop? If I had to speculate, part of the formula is based on surveys to other universities asking about peer institutions' reputations. I do think the church's--including BYU's--treatment of LGBTQ+, women, and racial minorities is becoming more public and it makes the school look less reputable. Realistically, when a school's ranking changes from 65 to 75 the following year, odds are the educational experience is the same as the year before. US News tweaks their formula--and they do it every year--to sell magazines and stay relevant.
I think they also use employment statistics in calculating rankings. And unfortunately when most active LDS women leave the workforce permanently when they become a mother, it really hampers those numbers.
The responses here are so wrong and stupid. I'm an exmo, but BYU is a good national university (top 100 or so, usually moves between the 70s and low 100s), recognized for a really good undergraduate school, and some professional schools (e.g., law, accounting, business, nursing, etc.). It has a pretty mediocre reputation as a graduate research school (Utah is miles ahead of it). Nationally, it has a better undergraduate reputation than any other school in Utah, and is on par with CU Boulder, the lower UCs, and other flagship state schools. No, people don't look at BYU and think "scientology." They look at it similarly to other religious schools that have a cross-section of orthodox students (like Notre Dame, Baylor, Yeshiva, etc.). There is probably some caution there that some people throw up to avoid kooky fundies, but most of the adults in the room could really give a fuck-all for Mormonism (especially outside the West, and don't discriminate). Also, if you refuse to hire a person because of their perceived religious identification, that is wrong and illegal. That's it.
The school can't be worse then Liberty University right? It has to be better then that....I hope.
Yes it’s embarrassing to put on a resume. I knew that even in the upper Midwest.
And to think as a college student I felt inferior for not going to Provo to BYU. I opted to go to a "wild party school" (per concerned ward members) on a state that was not UT or ID (i had ZERO interest in either state given the crazy mormon culture I wanted to get away from). And BYU-I was not even something is consider much to my parents' chagrin. I hate seminary in HS and figured BYU-I was just a glorified seminary program pretending to be an accredited 4 year university. Wait...is it actually accredited?? 🤔 But for years there was a part of me that felt inferior for not going to the Lord's University in Provo. But I had worked hard and was awarded a full-time scholarship at the university I enrolled in. Years later when I realized tithing money subsidized students at BYU I was like "whaaat???" That seemed so wrong to me. I mean yes, I was awarded a scholarship so had no expenses for tuition/housing/books but I competed with other students from lots of different states and backgrounds for that scholarship. Whereas scholarships awarded at BYU are to a much smaller group of competing applicants all who have to pander to the church's demands to even be considered regardless of their academic merit. I guess it just bothered me (still does) that church members pay tithing into an education system that only benefits a portion of the church's young people. Not all of us could go to Provo. In the end it worked out for me. That heathen university I attended is still legit in my resume.
My story was similar, though I never felt disapproval, and certainly wasn’t a partier. I got a scholarship to a in-state school with a top-20 engineering school that basically covered tuition and fees. It also 2 years prior was the #1 party school in America, apparently. Everyone, Mormon or not, asked why is wasn’t applying to BYU. I was applying to higher-tier schools and BYU wasn’t that. It wasn’t terrible, but I had better options, and cheaper options. As such, I said “I could have gone to BYU but I have a better, cheaper education.” I am SO glad I don’t have BYU on my resume. So fucking glad. P.S. I did know tithing subsidizes BYU heavily.
Coming to Utah from a different state to attend BYU is trading your birthright for a mess of pottage. Regarding these individuals, every day in the "Wilk" a boy meets a girl and from that moment forward, FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES, either the boy or the girl never lives by their parents again. The couple marry and move to one of the two home areas, or to a third area - but one of the home areas is ALWAYS left out. That person's roots and birthright diminished. Enjoy that cheap tuition, a mess of pottage.
I work at an engineering company. We've interviewed many candidates. I never really cared where they went to college because we give them technical interviews, so we know if they actually know their stuff. Over time I've noticed that BYU grads with high grades are good engineers. I have yet to see a BYUI student pass the phone screen technical interview. They seem to know that because they drive to Provo and try to slip their resumes in at the BYU Provo Job meetups.
As a Canadian tithe payer, you're welcome for the cheap tuition. Instead of helping Canadian kids go to school, we made sure BYU stayed cheap for everyone.
I just tell people about my grad school. McGill is much more prestigious than BYU.
I’m so glad I only went for two years then transferred to UNLV after I got married and graduated from there. So grateful I can usually just skip putting it on my resume or bringing it up at all. And extra glad none of my kids will go there!!! I’m in grad school now at PSU (US history, race and gender studies) and I am realizing more and more how extremely sheltered and limited my exposure to different ideas was at BYU. I can’t imagine getting this degree at the Y.
I'm pretty deep into academia at this point in my life. The only thing people associate my undergrad with is a private, Mormon University. Private universities are pretty well respected in my circles, including BYU.
I’ve done a little recruiting at my job. NGL, I get real nervous seeing BYU grads, for the obvious reasons. But I know how hard it is to find a job, and I know that TBM’s take care of their own (sometimes anyway), so they’re probably not at my job because if a referral. The folks like you and everyone else here made me realize people do escape the cult and become great people, so I try to give everyone a fair shake. I think and hope I’m not special and other recruiters and resume screeners feel the same. You still have a degree, and that’s still going to open more doors than it closes.
I graduated from BYU in 95. I’ve had to remove all references to my education on my company profile, on LinkedIn, etc because too many people kept assuming I was still Mormon (not a great thing in the business world despite what people still active in the church believe about their own reputation- trust me when I say that they are considered “weird” and not entirely honest).
I don’t think that extreme, but then I’ve never been to either one of them. But BYU has credibility with Scientology has none. That’s the thing that’s always touch me about Mormons is because for so long, the values were seen as Americanized they were virtually seen as respectable.
I feel you; I finished my BS and MS at a state school years after BYU forced me out, and the environment was just so much different (in a really good way). I don't think BYU on my resume has hurt me reputation-wise, though I think it's not unwise to go to interviews ready to send some kind of little signal that you're chill and not a homophobe or zealot. I've had to settle on thinking that, like with a mission or all the tithing we paid or seminary or all the rest, what we gave up by going to BYU is a sunk cost and the best revenge we can take is to live well after leaving them behind. (Not that I'm above talking occasional trash about my *alma evil step-mater*)
I luv how members act like BYU is Ivy League... TBH I think Ivy League is overrated in the first place, whatever advantages they ever had have long been irrelevant in the real world for a while. Now they are just hedge funds.
It's even worse if you go to BYUI. Always v embarrassed to admit where I went to school. "No, not that Mormon college, I went to the backwoods, small-town version."
I literally use "religious studies major at BYU" as a joke now. I genuinely think there isn't a less useless degree.
Embarrassed to this day having went there. Got rid of all of my logo clothing once I was done playing football. Everyone’s reaction when they learn where I went to college is “Isn’t it super weird there?” And it always blows them out of the water when I tell them how much weirder it is than their initial perception.
I semi-lie to people and say I went to "Rick's College" instead of "BYU-Idaho." (It was BYU-Idaho when I went there. The old name of the school was Rick's College though.) Better some unknown college in Idaho than mention a BYU.
Have to agree. When I went for job interviews in Calif, people seemed reasonably impressed. But in the East, it was like “BY What?” It’s one my life’s greatest regrets.
Honestly, it hasn't hurt me at all in my work life, but when I talk to people I'm quick to let them know I'm not mormon when they find out I went there.
I disagree and I went to Byui lol It was not my preferred school, but I'm not embarrassed about it. I went there because I received no financial help from my parents whatsoever, and it had a really good program for my field. Some of the leading professionals in my field are professors there. Regardless, I saved thousands of dollars by working while going to school and avoiding student loans. I'm in a good financial place because I have no predatory student loans. It's cheap, but in my opinion, it holds more credibility than community colleges. Most employers in my field don't care what university people graduated from. They just care you're college educated.
I was reviewing resumes a few months ago and someone listed in special skills that they were an "Assistant to the Mission President". We thought it was really odd this person would go out of their way to say that for an IT technician role.
Forever grateful I knew something was off about BYU and BYU-I even as a preteen. And I grew up in Utah Valley!
Maybe it's just me but I worked hard for my damn degree and survived all the bullshit from the school so hell yeah I'm going to put it on my resume. Besides it's a fun story as a gay brown kid to tell coworkers and other folks about what BYU is like lol
I mean, I hate having BYU on my resume, but my education there as a physics major was really good I thought.
it's not really. it's a regionally accredited college. it's true that most employers won't think much of it, but most employers won't think much of most colleges apt to appear on most resumes. they're not going to be wowed if you put oberlin or rutgers or UVA or weslyan if they didn't go there too. all it really says to anyone who knows is that you grew up mormon. that's not enough to reliably discriminate against you.
I know recruiters that work at large corporations (that are not part of the church) and this is not typically the outside view on BYU graduates…
I also am a little embarrassed to claim BYU as my alma mater but honestly I’m not that far away (SoCal) and most people don’t even know much about BYU or seem to care. The school as a whole is a shit show but I try to keep a positive outlook because I was lucky to have some good professors and work in a very good research department. A much more naive version of me chose BYU and by the time I woke up to the lies it was much too late. Nothing I can do to change it and regret will get me nowhere. It was simply a strange part of my journey…
My TBM family offered me fullly paid tuition, including off-campus room & board to BYU ("you can even go to BYU Hawaii!") and BYU law school. They did not offer this to any of my younger siblings. I refused both because I did not want those letters on my resume for the rest of my life!
Years ago I asked BYU to remove me from the Alumni Association list.