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Is BYU a home schooling version of college?

by Larrycoug · 2/17/2012

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Larrycoug
Saw that question on Cougar Board and was wondering you alls take on it?



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ABYUFAN
Larrycoug wrote:
Saw that question on Cougar Board and was wondering you alls take on it?



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Huh?
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Larrycoug
ABYUFAN wrote:
Saw that question on Cougar Board and was wondering you alls take on it?



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Huh?


I took it that BYU, like home school, shelters kids from the real world in many ways (e.g., liberal propaganda).



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BroncoBot
hmmm.... I don't think so. BYU was more liberal than my public high school.
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Larrycoug
declocoug wrote:
hmmm.... I don't think so. BYU was more liberal than my public high school.


BYU... liberal?



Did you go to "high school" in Colorado City?



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snoscythe
To the extent they are sheltered from "the world" (and it's arguable whether that's a bad thing) unlike home schooling, the kids at BYU choose to shelter themselves by going to BYU. Home schoolers have the sheltering imposed upon them by their parents. It may seem like semantics, but that's a massive difference in my book.
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Schmoe
The thing that makes the strange home-schooled kids strange is not that they're "sheltered" from public education -- far from it, it's the lack of social interaction, which you clearly get at BYU, though sometimes with some odd birds. And yes, it is much more liberal than most public high schools, as higher education, sadly, always seems to be.
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HoosierCougar
Larrycoug wrote:
hmmm.... I don't think so. BYU was more liberal than my public high school.


BYU... liberal?



Did you go to "high school" in Colorado City?



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I went to a public HS is Indiana in a town that was 95%+ Catholic. It was WAY more conservative than BYU. I was considered an off-the-ranch liberal in HS, but when I got to BYU I was told that my views were slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun. Views hadn't really changed, but the environments were different.



When I got out of my GEs and into the Econ program, I found many more righties in faculty positions (mostly libertarian leaning). Same with the MBA program, though fewer libertarians.
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BoiseBYU
No. Not even close. Even in Happy Valley the opportunity to chose good and evil, this philosophy or that one, is alive and well and every student faces that day to day. That there are perhaps more students who share more similar values at BYU than at other schools does not change this one bit. Is attending TCU a university version of a monastery?
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BroncoBot
Larrycoug wrote:
hmmm.... I don't think so. BYU was more liberal than my public high school.


BYU... liberal?



Did you go to "high school" in Colorado City?



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All a matter of perspective my friend. Most teachers at my high school would have been run out of town for teaching topics like evolution (most of my science professors), legalizing abortion, legalizing controlled substances (sociology), or for including foreign films in their curriculum that would have definitely been rated R (History courses and Russian film which was really trippy sometimes). That stuff was taught and shown at BYU pretty frequently.
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BoiseBYU
snoscythe wrote:
Is attending TCU a university version of a monastery?


Is this what you mean by monastery?

LOL. just asking'



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CAFB_04-12
What is the real question? Does one have to go to the University of Miami or someplace like that to be sufficiently de-sensitized to the real world? My liberal arts education at BYU focused on independent thought and analysis of national and international political, economic, and social issues. Not once did I feel like I couldn't reach out into the world and get information.



Most men at BYU served 2 year missions outside of Utah. Is this not enough "culture-ization" for you?
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Larrycoug
declocoug wrote:
declocoug wrote:
hmmm.... I don't think so. BYU was more liberal than my public high school.


BYU... liberal?



Did you go to "high school" in Colorado City?



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All a matter of perspective my friend. Most teachers at my high school would have been run out of town for teaching topics like evolution (most of my science professors), legalizing abortion, legalizing controlled substances (sociology), or for including foreign films in their curriculum that would have definitely been rated R (History courses and Russian film which was really trippy sometimes). That stuff was taught and shown at BYU pretty frequently.


So you did go to high school in Colorado City?



Did they preach this stuff though? How many pro life professors did you have? How many atheists? Let's be honest, teachings at BYU by-in-large matches what would be taught in most LDS homes. That's why the BYU/home school comparison seems valid to me.



TF, lots of parents force BYU on their kids, one way or another.



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Guest
Dix you go to BYU, Larry? If so when? If not, where?
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Dcr36
I wrote a big angry post here, but then I remembered that this is the internet and this argument doesn't really matter. So I took it down.



I'll simply say this - I've gone to both BYU and the U. Differences in actual classroom experience are greatly exaggerated on both sides in terms of professors bludgeoning students with their beliefs (it does happen, but it's the exception). BYU is surprisingly "traditional" in what they teach in "controversial fields" such as biology, philosophy, literature, etc. Not as repressed as it's often made out to be.



I reject the notion that LDS professors/conservative professors are inherently flawed or sheltering for the same reason I reject the notion that atheist professors/liberal professors are inherently flawed or belligerent. If a professor is intelligent and genuinely committed to teaching material and not using the classroom to stump, there's no reason that professor won't be effective.



I think it really only becomes an issue when you take a class that patently wouldn't be taught at BYU, period. If you're taking classes like "LGBT Depictions in 21st Century Media," well then, yeah, it's gonna be different. LDS history's gonna be more focused on faith-promoting stories at BYU as well, in my experience, so if that bothers you (and you're not inclined to do any supplemental reading), maybe you're better elsewhere.



I preferred BYU to the University of Utah. It had less to do with in-class experience and more to do with the fact that I liked the student body better. I'll take naive and overzealous over jaded and cynical anyday.
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Mars
Larrycoug wrote:
TF, lots of parents force BYU on their kids, one way or another.

I was the first in my family to ever attend BYU. Did you go there?
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ABYUFAN
Mars wrote:
TF, lots of parents force BYU on their kids, one way or another.

I was the first in my family to ever attend BYU. Did you go there?

Me too. USC was the only other University in our family, I was certainly encouraged to go to college, but not forced to choose anywhere in particular.
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BroncoBot
Larrycoug wrote:
Larrycoug wrote:
hmmm.... I don't think so. BYU was more liberal than my public high school.


BYU... liberal?



Did you go to "high school" in Colorado City?



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All a matter of perspective my friend. Most teachers at my high school would have been run out of town for teaching topics like evolution (most of my science professors), legalizing abortion, legalizing controlled substances (sociology), or for including foreign films in their curriculum that would have definitely been rated R (History courses and Russian film which was really trippy sometimes). That stuff was taught and shown at BYU pretty frequently.


So you did go to high school in Colorado City?



Did they preach this stuff though? How many pro life professors did you have? How many atheists? Let's be honest, teachings at BYU by-in-large matches what would be taught in most LDS homes. That's why the BYU/home school comparison seems valid to me.



TF, lots of parents force BYU on their kids, one way or another.



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I feel it's a poor comparison. And I don't have anything against home schooling.
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CAFB_04-12
Dcr36 wrote:
I wrote a big angry post here, but then I remembered that this is the internet and this argument doesn't really matter. So I took it down.



I'll simply say this - I've gone to both BYU and the U. Differences in actual classroom experience are greatly exaggerated on both sides in terms of professors bludgeoning students with their beliefs (it does happen, but it's the exception). BYU is surprisingly "traditional" in what they teach in "controversial fields" such as biology, philosophy, literature, etc. Not as repressed as it's often made out to be.



I reject the notion that LDS professors/conservative professors are inherently flawed or sheltering for the same reason I reject the notion that atheist professors/liberal professors are inherently flawed or belligerent. If a professor is intelligent and genuinely committed to teaching material and not using the classroom to stump, there's no reason that professor won't be effective.



I think it really only becomes an issue when you take a class that patently wouldn't be taught at BYU, period. If you're taking classes like "LGBT Depictions in 21st Century Media," well then, yeah, it's gonna be different. LDS history's gonna be more focused on faith-promoting stories at BYU as well, in my experience, so if that bothers you (and you're not inclined to do any supplemental reading), maybe you're better elsewhere.



I preferred BYU to the University of Utah. It had less to do with in-class experience and more to do with the fact that I liked the student body better. I'll take naive and overzealous over jaded and cynical anyday.


Well said.
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