Video 1 Transcript
Okay, the cons of BYU are that it's super hard, the workload is kind of hard, and it's cold here in Utah, and so walking to class sometimes in the winter is hard. But, I mean, you gotta have the cons to have the pros.
The cons - Brigham Young University Video Transcripts
Video 2 Transcript
The cons is that there's a high standard for students and so a lot of people feel like they're not doing good if they don't have an A in their class.
Video 3 Transcript
This may be biased, because I am not a big fan of BYU. I go to BYU, but I'm not a huge fan, and the reason being is because I think the biggest con about BYU is that they just expect you to put school before everything else in your life. Before social life, before a job, before family, before your mental health, and I just... It's not about that. My number one priority is not and never will be school, and I just feel like BYU expects it to be your number one priority, and so I just feel like if you're gonna be at BYU, then just enjoy other areas of your life, and if you have to miss an assignment, miss an assignment, because you were on a trip to the mountains or something, you know what I mean? Protect your mental health, protect your sanity, protect your social life, because it's important. Just as important.
Video 4 Transcript
One thing about BYU that is definitely kind of like a negative thing is how competitive it is. You are surrounded by people who are the smartest in their field, who have the most experience, who have the most professional credits, yada yada yada. Don't judge your accomplishments, like don't put those up against those around you. You'll start to feel inadequate. You'll start to feel like, oh my gosh, what am I even doing here? Like major imposter syndrome stuff. You got in or you're on scholarship. You're there for a reason. You have a place there. So don't get caught up in comparing the people who are so much smarter or farther down the road in their career than you. Just stay focused on you and you'll get through just fine.
Video 5 Transcript
When I was at BYU, one of the cons was it was really like kind of competitive. All of a sudden you weren't like the only smart person in the room. Everyone was really smart and so that was sometimes hard to have tests graded on a curve. And if you're used to getting good scores or being at the top of the class, all of a sudden everyone from all over the world, those people that were at the top of their class are now all in the same room. And so that was kind of a learning curve of kind of having it be competitive and just really hard but rewarding at the same time.
Video 6 Transcript
BYU is amazing, but one of the cons is the parking here is really hard to find. They do not have enough spots, so if you want to like bring your car here or anything, just like be aware of that, that sometimes you'll have to walk very far to your apartment to find places. And just because it is like such a big college town, like there's not a lot of parking like off-campus places either. But they do have a really good bus system and stuff, so you can use that instead.
Video 7 Transcript
A con of BYU is that everyone is the best. If you're a student who is top in your class, maybe even top in your school valedictorian, you're going to a college filled with students who are just like you. And this is great because it provides an opportunity to learn from your peers, but it can also be a little discouraging. A lot of people at BYU, including myself, are very competitive, and so if your measure of success is being the top in your class, you need to adjust your expectations and just try to be the best that you can be, because if you're ever the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. So if your expectation coming into BYU is that you're going to be smartest on campus, the smartest in your room, you need to adjust your expectations because BYU is filled with incredible students. We are all top of our class, we were all top of our schools in high school, and it can be a really challenging adjustment if you think that BYU will be just like your high school.
Video 8 Transcript
BYU is a little bit of a bubble, so it sometimes just feels like that is the whole world right there and it can be a little overwhelming and there's just times that you're just like, I just gotta get out. So I would recommend taking a day and getting out of Provo and honestly Utah County. Sometimes just take a day, go for a drive, go either north or south, but take a day and go just get out of the bubble and just kind of reset.
Video 9 Transcript
I think for me one of the hardest things going to BYU and just, you know, being in a maybe more conservative environment is not having enough resources to really support me as a woman thinking I could have it all. You can have a family, you can have a career. For me, I was raised thinking it kind of had to be get a career until you have a family and I later learned that it doesn't have to be that way. There can be flexibility. You can do more than one thing and so if anyone else out there needs to learn that, check out Julie Hanks. She's phenomenal and see if there's anyone else you could talk to at your school that's maybe feeling the same way. You might not be the only one.
Video 10 Transcript
I really am grateful for my time at BYU. I do feel like there are certain communities that aren't as accepted at BYU and there is sort of a general culture that people feel like they need to conform to. I just feel sad that there are so many people who feel left out at BYU and even I felt like I was a little bit on the outskirts in some situations and so I feel like the culture is gradually getting better over time and more accepting, but I just hope to see more and more people really advocate for that.
Video 11 Transcript
Something that I really struggle with at BYU sometimes is a lot of people come from a variety of backgrounds I would say and so then going random with roommates can come out to be like very difficult because sometimes people were just raised differently like in regards to like religious standards and like religious applications and it can make for almost an uncomfortable roommate experience because you know some people were raised to not watch TV on some days and some people weren't and so that's like kind of a con that I've noticed about BYU is you will be subject to a lot of judgment just because of how people were raised differently in the church.
Video 12 Transcript
One of the cons that I've realized about BYU is since there are a lot of people that go on missions for two years or one and a half years at a time, there can be a major age gap when it comes to dating. Like people will normalize 18 year old freshmen dating 22 year old guys or stuff like that and I don't think that's normal at all. I also think it's extremely weird and almost predatory in a way, but I've noticed that because of the age gaps that go missing, like there's not a ton of 19 year olds or 20 year olds here. Because of that age gap, a lot of people will date people that are much older or much younger than them.
Video 13 Transcript
BYU being great, I think, yeah, for the most part is. One con might be that it's a really homogeneous group, which is good for, you know, if you want to stay faithful in a college setting, but it's kind of a double-edged sword. There's not a whole lot of, like, racial diversity or ideological diversity, and that can lead to certain weird things being internalized. It can create an in-group that's not too fun if you're on the margins of it or even outside of it. So I would say just feel free to think outside the box.
Video 14 Transcript
Some of the cons that I think at BYU, the one is there's no place to study during midterm and finals. Like libraries are full, like other buildings are full too. It's really hard to find a place to study. And another one is that like a lot of homework, like a lot of homework assignments, a lot of tasks, like literally no social life during the semester. Gonna die.
Video 15 Transcript
One of the downsides of BYU is that you have a lot of homework and a lot of busy work. The reason is BYU wants to be Harvard of the West and sometimes they value academic clout and having a harder program over prioritizing what's actually best for the kids or the students who are attending. If I could redo it, I would probably just go to UVU so you could date all the girls at Provo without having to do the BYU homework.
Video 16 Transcript
I think the cons is parking. There's just so many people with so many cars. That parking is honestly insane.
Video 17 Transcript
It's cold. It's cold a lot of the year. Don't let fall semester fool you. It's cold too. I'm originally from Arizona, and so I'm not really used to it. I'm not built for this, but it is really pretty. I guess that's a plus, but the con would definitely be that it's always freezing and you can never ever beat it. You can put on as many layers as you want, but it's always super super cold.
Video 18 Transcript
I would say that a con of BYU is that everyone is the exact same. You will find blonde hair, blue-eyed people, and white, just like me, everywhere. I'd say that's a major con. BYU just kind of lives in its own little bubble. Not much outside culture or influence.
Video 19 Transcript
I would have to say that BYU has a really weird dating life, dating atmosphere. That's why I say it's okay if you don't have a perfect social life or a perfect dating life right at first when you get to BYU, because it takes time to figure out. And I would definitely say that part of going to BYU means that you have to shave every day, you have to stay clean shaven if you're a man. So that's definitely hard. BYU just wants to have its students maintain a clean appearance, which is why they do it. And I would say other than that, BYU is a pretty great place, so I wouldn't really think... I mean, there are not too many cons, so don't worry about it.
Video 20 Transcript
I think that we set our own expectations, and if we're going there for, say, social statements and things like that, this may not be the place for us. I believe BYU is an incredible place to get an education. And any issues that I had while I was there were more personal issues of me growing up and understanding what it was like to be an adult and making decisions. And the education I received from BYU is incredible, and I use it every day. Public relations, I'm an author, I set my own marketing programs, I use it all the time. So, it is what you make it.
Video 21 Transcript
I love going to BYU, I wouldn't want to go anywhere else, but the biggest con of BYU is that we don't really get breaks. Most universities have a spring break and a fall break, and then, you know, your normal breaks for holidays. But at BYU you get a single day in spring, and you don't get a fall break. So it's just a lot all at once, and granted you do get out of school a little bit earlier, but it's really easy to get burned out because you don't have those intermittent breaks.
Video 22 Transcript
Honestly, I love BYU. It's hard to think of other colleges that can be better than BYU, but there is a lot of pollution sometimes in Utah Valley. There's a lot of people, a lot of things going on, traffic, so if you don't like that, that's a con. If you really like your mustache or beard, that could be a con. You need to apply to get a beard card if you want to have a beard or mustache. BYU can be pretty competitive. It's a very large school. It's hard to meet everyone in your class. Almost impossible, I would say. There's also some intellectualism that can be counter-faith sometimes in some of the departments. I think the university is working on correcting that, but just be aware of that. The professors aren't perfect people, just like the students.
Video 23 Transcript
I love BYU and I'm really happy I came, but not everyone thinks the same, but I feel like everyone has, you know, similar ideas and goals and beliefs, which is great in like some aspects, but I also feel like it kind of made it hard to like find new perspectives and to hear about like different lifestyles because we all kind of have a similar lifestyle and similar culture, so that wasn't my super favorite and it also is just so competitive and I kind of feel like that's it's too competitive because it's a good school and it's recognized as a good school, but it's not recognized as Ivy League and it's just really competitive too much, I think.
Video 24 Transcript
I would say the biggest con is the fact that we get no breaks and all the UVU students over there are getting a full spring break and we have spring day. I wish that we had a little bit more of like, I don't know, off time? I don't know. I wish we had breaks. That's the biggest con, I think.
Video 25 Transcript
Some of the cons of BYU might be just how hard and rigorous education is. Another con is maybe that everyone here is working just as hard as you. So it kind of makes it a challenging environment.
Video 26 Transcript
BYU can be a very difficult place if you are a person who doesn't deal well with rules, especially if they seem arbitrary. Growing up on the east coast of the United States, you can tell I'm not a huge fan of shaving my beard. I just don't like shaving. For example, I just did not like the no beard rule. Not that I loved having a beard, I just didn't like shaving. You have to be willing to take some minor amounts of correction and be willing to grind through it and move forward. And if you can, then you're fine. But it can be very difficult for people who don't deal well under those conditions. And I have many friends, wonderful people, who did not like that.
Video 27 Transcript
The only con I can think of going to BYU is those absolutely horrendous south side stairs. If you live south of campus, you have to climb this stupid hill every day, and it is the worst. Hopefully they put in some sort of a ski lift, I think that would be awesome, but I would think that's pretty much the only con. If you live on the north side, you're loving life, but if you're on the south side, it's gonna suck every day for about, I don't know, two minutes or however long it takes you to climb that hill.
Video 28 Transcript
The generals are so hard unnecessarily, which is kind of annoying at times. For me, I think it's good. I needed like to go to college that was really going to push me and make me work hard, so I think it's been super, super good. But at the same time, the generals are really hard, which is kind of annoying sometimes because you take a semester, like a class load that maybe has more generals and you think, oh, maybe this won't be as hard as like my major classes. But no, they're so hard, and you have to study like crazy. So that's a thing, but I still love it.
Video 29 Transcript
I would say that one of the cons about BYU would probably just be something along the lines of their interesting rule set that you wouldn't see at most colleges, such as like your hair can't be too long, you can't really have facial hair or anything like that, like I graduated so I don't have to deal with that anymore, but it's like you can't even go into the testing center if your hair is out of control and you have a beard, you can't do that unless you get like a beard card or something, and then just like, you know, obviously they're a private university, they can make whatever rules they want, but some of the extenuating, like some of just like the extra rules compared to other private universities would be considered like as a con for a lot of people, especially because like some of them are kind of based on our religious aspects, like such as like how we date and you know sexual, like sexual conduct and stuff like that, so definitely kind of an interesting kind of point, but I would say that's pretty much the only thing that I had was like anything negative.
Video 30 Transcript
Some of the cons of coming down to BYU, it might even be in Provo area, is just that the parking is pretty bad. And so, if you're hanging out with friends, make sure you go pick them up if they're coming to your apartment complex, or else they'll just get booted or get a ticket.