What I Wish I Knew Before Choosing BYU-Idaho: The Preface

I started school at BYU-Idaho in the fall of 2010 -- four years ago. Due to some dilly-dallying early on, and taking a year off, I now find myself in the uncomfortable position of watching the rest of my high school class graduating through Facebook, while I look forward to three more semesters of college. That being said, I have been here, in Rexburg, Idaho for a long time -- even taking a few classes on my off semesters. I have moved eight times to five different apartment complexes around campus, signed the honor code many times, and lived with 31 different girls. I say this so you know, blogland, that I have been around the proverbial block, (which is admittedly small, in Rexburg).

A significant part of life here at BYUI is the Honor Code. It's a list of rules and behavioral guidelines which you have to follow in order to be a student here, since this is a private Church university.

The basic points seem simple and reasonable enough: (Taken from the school Honor Office website)

• Be honest
• Live a chaste and virtuous life
• Obey the law and all campus policies
• Use clean language
• Respect others

• Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee and substance abuse
• Participate regularly in church services
• Observe Dress and Grooming Standards
• Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code

In addition to those reasonable expectations, specific rules include dress code guidelines (no capris, leggings, shorts, or flip flops), behavior guidelines (no laying down with a boy, or being alone in your apartment with him) as well as curfew every night of the week. If you're interested, you can read the whole thing here.

You've probably read a few blogs and articles which tell you exactly why you'll love the Honor Code (and even live it after you graduate!). They tell you that you should be grateful for your chance to obey the rules and attend school here, taking advantage of the free gym and first-rate education at a tithing-subsidized rate. (Which in fact, I am very grateful for). Fellow BYUI kids have sat through the first Devotional of every semester where Pres. Clarke talks about how great the Honor Code is and how living it will help you come closer to Christ. You've seen the propaganda on campus in the form of life-size signs of students proclaiming their love for it. The school runs a campaign where they post signs and pass out backpack clips, wristbands and T-Shirts with their slogan #ihonorit. (or something like that).All of that seems fine and dandy... until it isn't.

There is a significant portion of our student body who love, and I mean LOVE the honor code. Even going to so far as to ask Pres. Clarke during a Q&A how we can intensify it and make sure that every student follows it exactly (true story). They'll tell you that the Honor Code is the reason you will love school here, and that the Honor Code is obviously divinely inspired, since this is a church school, President Clarke is an area seventy, and we are overseen by the Church Board of Education which includes the prophet. (Don't worry, I will address that particular misconception in a later post). Since the school is operated under the Church, God must have a problem with the just the young adult church members at a specific school in Southeast Idaho showing their ankles on campus, right? Oh, so wrong.

As you can probably tell, I have a serious distaste for the Honor Code at BYUI. (I know, I'm a heathen.) Before you go off and tell me that I'm going to Hell for not loving every word out of our dear president's mouth (you'll have to get in line), you should know that I've already heard all of your protests (I promise), and I'll explain everything in time, just calm down.

At it's core, the Honor Code has good intentions -- to keep students on the straight-and-narrow, help everyone grow closer to Christ, and promote an atmosphere on campus consistent with the ideals and teachings of the Church. I support all of those things.

 Unfortunately, those core ideals have gotten carried away into a host of rules and policies that fly in the face of some core teachings of the Church, and inadvertently promote hypocrisy, pride and judgement among the student body -- all in the name of love, righteousness and discipleship. (My few non-religious readers are all laughing and saying "duh" right now -- I understand some of that comes along with all religion when misinterpreted by a zealots and misguided followers. The problem here is that a church school actively promotes these unChristlike attitudes and misrepresents what it means to be a disciple of Christ to thousands of young adults.)

BYU-Idaho wasn't always this way. My first year here was actually pretty normal -- the Honor Code existed, we knew about it and followed it, but it wasn't pushed so hard and fanatically shoved down our throats as much as it is now. For the most part, people were accepting, loving and weren't so paranoid about the rules that catching rule-breakers was far more important than loving them. As time goes on, I have seen how the school has gotten markedly crazier and the atmosphere significantly less spiritual and more hateful and judgmental.

I'll probably write a post later where I go through every fallacy-ridden and dumb argument people have for the Honor Code and explain why it's the worst. This is not that post. I have had many, many, conversations and debates about the Honor Code and why I hate it so much, and in the end, the argument always comes down to this: You chose to go here. You signed the Honor Code. You knew what you were getting into. If you don't like it, leave. It makes sense, doesn't it? In fact, I used to be one of those people, parroting that same argument. There are myriad other schools I could have gone to. I did sign the Honor Code before I came here. Me saying I hate it is kind of like someone getting mad that they burned their hand on the stove after being told that it was hot and still choosing to touch it. Right?

I knew what the Honor Code said before I came here. I read it several times. I thought I understood what I was getting into. In fact, if everything stopped just at the specifics which I agreed to before attending school here, we wouldn't have a problem. Yeah, a lot of the rules are dumb and stupid and the logic behind them is hilariously flawed, but at the end of the day, I agreed to those rules. The website and the Honor Code itself is written positively -- it's very extreme and lots of it is outright silly, but it's doable.

That being said, the main reason I have such a problem with the school and the Honor Code now, is not because of the rules I signed up for -- it's because there are several truckloads of other stuff that go along with attending school here that I didn't sign up for. Levels of control that the school has over student life that aren't written into the Honor Code but are inescapable. Nuances that come along with "approved housing" that aren't explained fully until you find yourself in a situation that brings the hideous, controlling, incredibly un-Christlike beast of school administration and regulation to the surface. The fact that hardly any of your credits from here will transfer to any other school (Including other BYUs), so if you come here and don't like it, you either lose a ton of money, time, and credits by transferring, or you're S.O.L.

There are things that they don't tell you about BYU-Idaho and the Honor Code before you sign up. Things which, had I known about before attending school here, would have likely prevented me from enrolling. I want to put them out there so others will be more informed than I was. The list is pretty extensive, so I'm going to space it out over a few posts, broken into categories. First up, is Approved Housing. Be excited.

Sometimes trends are cute

Sometimes they remind you of cartoon characters. Lately, everywhere I go on campus, I see girls walking around with this hairstyle:

Am i the only one who thinks it looks silly? I mean, it's true that Vanessa Hudgens (sp?) is a total babe with it, but most of us don't look like her. Look how ridiculous it looks on Kim Kardashian there. It's like this super goofy little ball of hair... directly on top of your head. And since 99% of people aren't nearly as pretty as movie stars, it looks even more strange on them than it does on Kim K.

I get it. You're trying to be a trendy girl. But some trends should be left to Vanessa Hudgens and her professional hairstylists. For real, every time I see one of these top knots on a real life person, I picture this:

Why? I'm not sure. But probably because I always thought her ponytail/bun thing was super random and weird and distracting too. So now every time I walk on campus I just see lots of silly Olive Oyls walking around. It's actually kind of disconcerting.

Plus, it's ridiculously cold here. There's no way these poor girls' ears aren't frostbitten with their hair just chillin' directly on top of their heads like that, leaving their ears out in the cold all alone... plus it looks even goofier paired with earmuffs. Just picture it.

Tell me I'm not the only girl who thinks this way.

Lessons from Rexburg

1. The bigger the hair, the prettier you are. Even if the excessive lopsided hair teasing gives you a square head.
2. You can NEVER go wrong with Ed Hardy, rhinestones on everything, or mustard yellow.
3. Having pockets on your leggings somehow turns them from tights into perfectly acceptable pants.
4. The darker your tights, the shorter your skirt can acceptably be in church. 
5. Four-wheelers and this thing are street legal, but throwing snowballs is a crime.
   
6.  Making skirts out of ties stolen from elders on your mission is not actually creepy.
7. Struggling across icy sidewalks in heels is TOTES worth it for the chance to wear that adorbs outfit to class
8. Scraping the top half of snow off the road and leaving a huge pile/median in the middle is considered acceptable snow plowing.
9. When your apartment manager sends out an e-mail telling you you have to move your car out of the parking lot at 8 am on a Saturday so they can plow the lot, emphasizing how it's totally worth getting up in the negative temperatures to have a clear parking lot, she actually means you have to move your car at 8 am so they can redistribute the snow across the lot and do nothing to get rid of the 3 inch layer of ice that covers the asphalt.
10. Since the plowing does nothing, when girls re-park in the parking lot, they only strengthen the stereotype of girls being bad drivers, when, instead of parking like this:

    

    Ignore the bad phone drawing. Note that this is a TERRIBLE layout for a parking lot anyway.

    they think it's totally rational to park like this:

    

    This may seem like a better way, but that's just because i got better at finger phone drawing for this one. it's actually way worse and makes no sense. that's not how the parking lot is shaped. the other day, there was a truck parked ON THE SIDEWALK.

11. The honor code is of equal importance to salvation with the commandments. You wore shorts across the DEDICATED SIDEWALK into the DEDICATED gym? No chance of heaven for you! You were still walking home at 12:01? A boy was in your apartment at 10:00 am? You dyed a chunk of your hair purple?  Hope you enjoy the Telestial, sinner.
12. The McDonalds here don't sell the Spicy McChicken sandwich. Which is a travesty, because everyone knows that's the only good non-breakfast or dessert item on the menu.
13. It's perfectly normal to go door-to-door "tracting" to meet girls. Not creepy, but normal.
14. Despite the overly aggressive nature of 85% of females here (3:1 girl to guy ratio does that to you), the problem with dating is that girls aren't forward enough. Expect a blog on this one later.
15. Don't like the neckline on that shirt? Put on four other ones to distract from it, and you'll be cute! (Shirt too low? Start with a turtleneck, add a Layers brand shirt for good measure, then the shirt you want to wear on top. Maybe add a tank top over it all for good measure. There you go, that's hot.)
16. Mom bobs + extreme highlights + rhinestones + 2 inches of foundation = high class.
17. Yelling out "Honor Code" at people walking by five minutes after curfew means you love them, not that you're pretentious and judgmental.
18. When you run out of things to do, take up meat sculpting!
19. Weekly devotional attendance is a completely rational measurement of whether or not a man is date worthy.
20. This is a normal sight:

    

    He also needs help finding his lost dog and gives free candy to children

    
    

To Be Continued...

 P.S (Keep in mind that even though this post sounds super sarcastic and negative -- because it is -- Rexburg is actually ridiculously awesome and I do love it. A lot. But sometimes I can't handle it, so I need to let out some steam.)

To Brett:

This.

(For all you non-Bretts out there, there's a real post coming soon.)