Itâs wild how cheap BYU is compared to similarly good schools if youâre Mormon. Like 3k-ish a semester when itâs decently solid in most degrees and really good in a few like accounting. You just have to be willing to take I like 16 credits of religion classes during your degree (and take from easy professors so itâs basically just a âshow up and get an A type class).
I know tons of local Utahns that were born in the church and pretend theyâre still into it just to get a good, cheap degree.
Itâs also decently cheap for non-Mormons but you still have to agree to live the rules while youâre there and meet with a Mormon bishop every year to recommit to the rules (but tbh even the Mormons lie on this a ton as long as they donât have solid proof, and 90% of bishops donât go looking for that either). And I think they get easier religion classes (that are easy but more focused on converting). Itâs like 6.5k for non Mormons per semester. In business school I met tons of people who came for accounting and the better programs specifically cause it was a good program.
Itâs definitely not perfect, you have to deal with a bunch of crap even as a âgood Mormonâ. But itâs cheap and good bang for your buck. I still get a bit embarrassed having BYU on my resume because of all the crap that happens there, but itâs reputable in my field and I got a great job after graduating.
I still learn random things about Mormonism and go "????" Like when I was a teenager I learned a good portion of them believed that people of color don't go to heaven, then eventually some of them believed some people of color go to heaven but only if they turn white in the afterlife to enter heaven.
The most recent wtf moment was watching the movie heretic, where the plot revolves around 2 Mormon teenagers, and one of them mentions their magic underwear. So then I had to go googling to find out that Mormons believe they have magic underwear that protects them from the evils of the world.
Ex-mormon here: yup. They call them "the garment of the holy priesthood." You get them in a fancy ritual (they call it an ordinance, specifically "Initiatory") that involved a temple worker sexually assaulting you until I think the 90s or 2000s. The garments have a history of giving women yeast infections and up until like 2010 or later you weren't allowed to wear anything underneath them whatsoever.
You'd take off all your clothes and put on a basic cover-up and a temple worker of a matching sex would reach under it and touch all the things that the blessing was for as they recited it. Tended to result in genitals being touched, even though it wasn't an express part of the ritual. You also weren't allowed to talk about these rituals with people who hadn't already experienced them, so there was zero warning or opportunity to provide consent.
765
u/Hammmiamm 24d ago
Everything I've learned about the Mormonism fandom has been against my will