back at BYU! (class, money, and choice in education)

[Portia]

I'm excited to be back on campus. I hope to run into some of you fine folks, though more and more of you transferred/graduated/never went to BYU.

I'm starting to get nervous about acquiring a career upon graduating: it seems like more and more companies are cutting back on healthcare benefits and relocation packages. I'd say 90% of the women in my crowd leave BYU with a husband, a baby, or a grad school acceptance; as usual, I feel more like a dude in this scenario, with none of the above (but a lot of pressure). And so many of those dudes have been working outside their field, at best, while a few have been downright unemployed (most of those are the ones who need jobs most because of their crippling student loans, oy).

I was reading Frank Bruni's article about choosing colleges and in the comments there was a bit that made me laugh and want to cry. They lived in Hawaii and their daughter went to a small liberal arts college in the Northeast, and the parents acted like the very act of braving snowdrifts was some sort of character-building experience. Her school cost $20,000 per semester. I could easily live for four years doing nothing in Salt Lake for twenty grand. I'm glad I went to a school that probably has better lab facilities and language departments for a tenth that. That my brother is going to the state university you can ride the bus to and whose main thoroughfare is named after a Nobel laureate. I feel like life builds your character for you.

I just read all these hipster Tumblrs and NYT op-eds and I'm just like "why? why should I possibly care about your apartment in Bushwick/self-conscious sex comedy about people who went to $40K/year arts schools/weird love affair with Robert Kennedy?" It seems so disconnected from real, everyday experience, and that's what I love most about BYU. How aggressively unhip it is. People wing the bee and go to Hollywood blockbusters and no one ever, ever has money and everyone dresses about five years younger than they are. I think you have to be a certain sort of anti-hipster to even make the conscious decision to live somewhere like Provo anyway.

I don't know how I'm going to compete with the sort of sophisticates who party in the Hamptons and wear high heels just to do it when I'm interviewing for a "real" career. Deep down a part of me is afraid that they'll see my alma mater and make assumptions about me which are not necessarily correct (for instance, that I'll bolt as soon as a man comes along). I feel like leaving Utah, and the fresh-faced unironic friends and family that come along with that, takes a certain degree of risk-taking. I don't feel like I'm unadventurous (no one is more excited than I for my brother's imminent departure to Paris, land of the cool and chic), but I do feel like the world I want (a world outside this hick town, Barnaby) is sort of made for the people with the luxury of choice, which I don't have. When I was my brother's age, my mom marched down to Provo and ordered me to get another job, because she thought I was messing around with my boyfriend and childhood best friend (who was incredibly close to my mother, and ratted us out, in his careless, well-meaning way). I don't think people who are my graduating cohort had that experience enough, and I feel like it toughened me up, but it's hard not to be jealous of their experiences and opportunities sometimes.

So I'm just happy to be somewhere with people like me, where not everyone has had everything handed to them on a silver platter. I am very much looking forward to people-watching in the Wilk. If I do succeed as a journalist/novelist (which is the whole damn point of going to college, for me at least), I feel like the social education I got at BYU will be ten times more valuable than anything I ever learned in a lecture hall.

[Whistler]

hey, welcome back to Provo! We should hang out with our overlapping social sets sometime.

After working for a New York based publication, I think I know what you mean. It's a huge culture difference, and some of the differences I don't really appreciate (or maybe it was just my one editor?).

At the same time, you don't have to be poor to be pious. Like, I was reading a book about a woman homesteader, and all the Mormons she ran into seemed terribly poor. It's not that living off the land was difficult, it's more like living off the land with 5 kids was difficult. I had assumed that all the pioneer/homestead women lived frugally and uncomfortably, but this woman didn't! She had plenty of butter that she worked hard to get, and nice warm clothes. I guess that's something I admire. Poverty in itself isn't a virtue, but it does help keep college kids humble at a time when they're prone to think they're hot stuff.

Anyway, good luck with classes!

[Portia]

hey, welcome back to Provo! We should hang out with our overlapping social sets sometime.

After working for a New York based publication, I think I know what you mean. It's a huge culture difference, and some of the differences I don't really appreciate (or maybe it was just my one editor?).

At the same time, you don't have to be poor to be pious. Like, I was reading a book about a woman homesteader, and all the Mormons she ran into seemed terribly poor. It's not that living off the land was difficult, it's more like living off the land with 5 kids was difficult. I had assumed that all the pioneer/homestead women lived frugally and uncomfortably, but this woman didn't! She had plenty of butter that she worked hard to get, and nice warm clothes. I guess that's something I admire. Poverty in itself isn't a virtue, but it does help keep college kids humble at a time when they're prone to think they're hot stuff.

Anyway, good luck with classes!

Our sets really are overlapping ridiculously. When it was like, oh hello Whistler when I called on New Year's Eve, I had to laugh. Your party seemed much more fun than mine, which was, essentially, a bacchanal, where all the men were douchey and all the women were very beautiful, overdressed and yet underdressed for the weather, and there were a lot of ... substances. I'm such a cool kid I really just wanted to be curled up with my novel translated from the Hungarian.

Yes, there are so many cultural differences - even the wild party I think illustrates that. I feel like in other cultures, they can drink and have very proper, subdued get-togethers. In my experience, in Utah, once you bust out the vodka bottles, someone is making out with someone else's boyfriend by the end of the night. Not that I haven't been around questionable parties before (one when I was twenty-one with a bunch of underage Frenchies led me to a sort of breakdown/ended up being the fun-killing tattle-tale, oh, summer I was twenty-one, how I miss/don't miss you), but it was this moment of clarity of how little I care about being a scenester. Though I was impressed with the Mad Men getups (that was the theme).

It's true that being poor is weirdly idealized in Mormon culture. The history of the homesteader you were reading about sounds fascinating.

Thanks - I need it. I need to see it as an investment in the future and not just a class for right now. And hopefully our mutual friend gets himself a car.

[thatonemom]

It's true that being poor is weirdly idealized in Mormon culture. The history of the homesteader you were reading about sounds fascinating.

Can you guys explain that more? Like examples? I'm just curious because I've always had the opposite impression -- that being wealthy is idealized; the more money you have the more you can help or serve the Church, etc.

[TheAnswerIs42]

It's true that being poor is weirdly idealized in Mormon culture. The history of the homesteader you were reading about sounds fascinating.

Can you guys explain that more? Like examples? I'm just curious because I've always had the opposite impression -- that being wealthy is idealized; the more money you have the more you can help or serve the Church, etc.

My mother-in-law is an example. She prides herself on the fact that she dresses poorly because all of it came from DI, all of her furniture came from yard sales, etc. She uses the word "fancy" as an insult to anything that is actually nice looking. It is her way of proving that she is a Poor Unfortunate Mom who devotes everything to her children and is worthy of your sympathy or something.

I never thought of her as anyone else's ideal though. It's just her way. But I do see some praise of those who are poor but doing everything they can for their families, etc. Couponing, provident living, etc.

[Marduk]

There's a disporportionate number of wealthy among the heirarchy in the church, that's for sure.

[Whistler]

It's true that being poor is weirdly idealized in Mormon culture. The history of the homesteader you were reading about sounds fascinating.

Can you guys explain that more? Like examples? I'm just curious because I've always had the opposite impression -- that being wealthy is idealized; the more money you have the more you can help or serve the Church, etc.

The homesteader book Letters from a Woman Homesteader (http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Woman-Hom ... omesteader), was a really fun read. Some of the events might be elaborated, but I'm okay with that.

I guess it depends on your neighborhood. This winter I was super excited to ride the train to California, since I've never done it before, and everyone was like... "you're doing it because it's cheaper, right?" and I was like "no, because I think a train will be a fun life experience!" (maybe they just thought the train would be miserable?). After I got married, I had a hard time putting the thermostat up to 70 instead of 65, because I felt like I should suffer a little to be frugal. Maybe it's just me? But I'm learning to accept that some things improve my life quality enough that they're worth spending money on (like last year when I bought a really nice down coat--helped me not be cold all the time).

A lot of the rhetoric in my neighborhood about food storage is "and it saves money!" and "why do it some fancy expensive way when you can do it cheaply?" I'm all for doing things inexpensively, but the constant reminders of how we should be spending as little money as possible give me a little unnecessary anxiety.

[Katya]

It's true that being poor is weirdly idealized in Mormon culture. The history of the homesteader you were reading about sounds fascinating.

Can you guys explain that more? Like examples? I'm just curious because I've always had the opposite impression -- that being wealthy is idealized; the more money you have the more you can help or serve the Church, etc.

I think people want to be proud of who they are, no matter what situation they find themselves in. Since a lot of Mormons have big families or live on a single income or start a family while they're in college or grad school, they end up being poorer than they might otherwise be, so they take pride in their frugality because it's a way to look at their situation in positive terms.

[yayfulness]

For me, it's always been an issue of feeling like everything I have, I have because my parents gave it to me and not because I earned it myself, and I'd rather be poor and self-sufficient than rich and dependent.

Of course, now I actually am living paycheck to paycheck and hoping I can survive each month without running out of money, so it's kind of lost all of its appeal. But I'm still too proud to ask my parents for help unless I have literally no other choice.

[Zedability]

For me, it's always been an issue of feeling like everything I have, I have because my parents gave it to me and not because I earned it myself, and I'd rather be poor and self-sufficient than rich and dependent.

Of course, now I actually am living paycheck to paycheck and hoping I can survive each month without running out of money, so it's kind of lost all of its appeal. But I'm still too proud to ask my parents for help unless I have literally no other choice.

word

[thatonemom]

For me, it's always been an issue of feeling like everything I have, I have because my parents gave it to me and not because I earned it myself, and I'd rather be poor and self-sufficient than rich and dependent.

Of course, now I actually am living paycheck to paycheck and hoping I can survive each month without running out of money, so it's kind of lost all of its appeal. But I'm still too proud to ask my parents for help unless I have literally no other choice.

Interesting. I was just going to ask if you guys saw poverty being idealized at BYU. The attitude I saw more often, especially from guys, was that they needed to make sure they were going to make a good amount of money come graduation. I remember one of my guy friends telling me I could study whatever I wanted because I'd never have to work. Whereas he had to study something lucrative, that would support a family of indeterminate size, and would guarantee that his wife never worked.

Which now makes me wonder if this is a gender issue, with women being more likely to point to their not exactly affluent state as a sign of how not-worldly they are. And men maybe seeing it as something of a failure on their part.

[yayfulness]

For me, it's always been an issue of feeling like everything I have, I have because my parents gave it to me and not because I earned it myself, and I'd rather be poor and self-sufficient than rich and dependent.

Of course, now I actually am living paycheck to paycheck and hoping I can survive each month without running out of money, so it's kind of lost all of its appeal. But I'm still too proud to ask my parents for help unless I have literally no other choice.

Interesting. I was just going to ask if you guys saw poverty being idealized at BYU. The attitude I saw more often, especially from guys, was that they needed to make sure they were going to make a good amount of money come graduation. I remember one of my guy friends telling me I could study whatever I wanted because I'd never have to work. Whereas he had to study something lucrative, that would support a family of indeterminate size, and would guarantee that his wife never worked.

Which now makes me wonder if this is a gender issue, with women being more likely to point to their not exactly affluent state as a sign of how not-worldly they are. And men maybe seeing it as something of a failure on their part.

I think that's definitely part of it. I feel like there's this implicit idea that whatever I end up doing, I need to have a plan to turn it into a decent amount of money or I should have no expectation of having (or even the right to have) the kind of relationships that would lead to marriage and family. Add to that the fact that I always got extremely good grades and high test scores in high school, so there's always been the idea that I'm going to end up going into Something Very Smart and Profitable, without any actual indication of what... to say that I've had some internal conflicts about this would be an understatement.