Confession – I didn’t go to BYU and I turned out okay.

In fact, I even got married to a nice returned missionary after three years of college. And (here’s the shocker) I still go to church, every week, in fact, and hold callings and read my scriptures and do all that good Mormon stuff.

Now, doesn’t that sound ridiculous? And yet, as my little sister graduated from high school this year and she goes through the same battle I went through (and after reading this post click here …), I decided to reflect back on my senior year.

I did not want to apply for the Ivies – I thought they were over-prestiged and over-priced and I thought it was silly all the articles about how “My daughter just has to get into Brown or she will die”. So, I didn’t. I thought about MIT, but after seeing their lack of academic or non-need based scholarships, it was out, too. See, practical senior that I was – I saw no sense in spending lots of money or loans to go to these schools when cheap schools were just around the corner. I lived in Texas, for goodness sake, with some of the best public universities around.

I also didn’t want to be crazy and apply to 15 or 20 schools, so I applied to 5 – BYU, University of Texas – Austin, University of Texas – Dallas, Texas A&M, and Northeastern University. The last was completely random. They had sent me the world’s easiest application – fill in test scores & GPA & name & one paragraph … just one page long – and it had no application fee. Plus, it was in Boston where I had always wanted to live. But otherwise, they were all pretty much practical choices.

I visited each school. I went to special programs at all but Northeastern, often especially for engineers because I wanted to be an engineer. UTD was out – I just wasn’t positive that I wanted to be an electrical engineer and the choices of major were slim pickings and too close to home. UTA was huge … and while Austin was beautiful, even our student guides admitted it was hard to make friends and kind of isolating. BYU was similarly huge and the campus seemed bewildering to me. In addition, the engineering program seemed very non-user friendly … the flow charts just to figure out what classes to take looked like they would require a PhD to figure out. And they couldn’t even get enough girls to fill the spots at the little honors visiting program for engineers I went to. I really enjoyed A&M – very friendly, very good engineering program, they definitely tried to “wine and dine” me in, good co-operative education (interships) program. And Northeastern was great – fun, in the city, and great engineering program with the country’s best co-op program. (I had decided that just in case I got married and had kids right off like my parents it was essential that I get internships while I was in school so I got some real world experience).

Luckily, I got scholarships at each school. The amounts varied a bit – tuition was covered at all of them. Room & board was covered at all but BYU (though A&M’s scholarship system was a mess to figure out). And UTD would have even given my monthly checks for living expenses. I had it made. And after a long decision between Northeastern and A&M, I finally chose Northeastern because I wanted to take the chance to live in a big city in another part of the country. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my days burning up in Texas.

So, all in all, I have to say that I made a pretty informed decision. And not to worry, I considered the church aspect as well. I checked out the institute programs at all the respective schools. That was a clear factor against UTD because there just weren’t enough LDS young adults in Dallas with good futures in my opinion. The rest seemed very good. In Boston, my Dad and I even attended an Institute event and took a tour with another fellow Northeastern LDS sister. I figured that everywhere but Dallas I would have an opportunity to meet & hang out with other LDS people.

Then, the preaching, the harassing, and the haranguing began. My ward just couldn’t get over my decision. Each school I was considering (except BYU) was a “party school”. I would never meet anyone, never get married, and would fall away from the church. People told me over and over again what a bad decision it was. My friend (who also attended an East Coast school) and I were badgered about it constantly. Why weren’t we going to “the Lord’s university”? Some people specifically told me they were appalled that I wasn’t going to accept my scholarship. That I had, therefore, stolen that money away from other deserving students who would now not be able to attend BYU. Now, keep in mind, that I did call BYU and explain that I would not be attending and that they could give the money to another deserving student. But BYU, unfortunately, couldn’t actually record that decision or do anything with the money until I didn’t enroll in the fall.

Overall, I think I had a good experience at Northeastern University. I enjoyed my college years (which are still continuing in graduate students here in the great state of Michigan). I was very very happy with the academic program at Northeastern. Socially, it was somewhat difficult at school as I did not want to go clubbing, drinking, etc. every night which was a main event. But I had friends at school. And I had tons of friends at church. I worked internships for 18 months while I was there and got valuable experience at Tek Microsystems and Sun Microsystems and made upwards of $20/hr. I had great friends at church who roamed the city of Boston with me, a city I grew to love. I attended dozens of Institute classes, graduating from Institute several times over in four and a half years. I even met a great man at Boston University and married him. It was a great experience for me.

I don’t think BYU is a bad school. I don’t hate Utah. I think there are plusses and minuses to all schools. I have good friends who went to BYU and I have good friends who didn’t. I saw friends go inactive or do sinful things that went to BYU and who didn’t.

I do, however, have a problem with members who think that BYU is the only right school, with BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii and, unfortunately, sometimes even UVSC a close second, and all the rest of the schools not even in the running. In an age when not everyone can go to BYU, when BYU is pruning its majors and does not offer everyone’s desired major, and when there are other good universities with good environments, good people, and good institutes, then people should let others make their own decision without ridiculous heckling and harassing. Even when meant to be good natured, it is not appropriate.

Too often, whether in choosing a college or a career or other major or minor life decisions, people try to force other people to do what they think is right. And in the end, it doesn’t make anyone happy. So, for all you Mormons out there – let people choose their own college, BYU or another other good option. Why not? I survived.