Olivet Nazarene University

Date: Mar 04 2008
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
I transferred into Olivet my soph year hoping to gain more spiritual insight during my college career. What I found was an unacademic, overpriced, glorified bible college. The attitudes endorsed and propagated by the university favor fundamentalism and a sort of conservative nationalistic/religious weirdness. The choir sings songs glorifying war in churches on July 4. The men must trim their hair. Professors explain that homosexuals are a "diseased people" and a dangerous threat to morality, then for their sources cite the academic powerhouse, "Focus on the Family" Before attending, ask yourself if college is the time where you want to reaffirm the worldview of your parents, or whether you want to truly grow. If it is the latter, there are more conducive environments. I was hoping to come away from my experience at this school without being bitter, but it has totally turned me off towards organzied religion (probably a good thing.) It did help me learn patience and openmindedness in the sense that the vast majority held views I regard as oppresive and strange; forcing me to question my own worldview.

Olivet is a school that is spending 100s of Millions of dollars on a "glorious" new chapel, in a town where poverty and racisim abound. Olivet is a school where the service groups are geared to converting people. Olivet is a school where Jesus himself would literally be kicked out of (too expensive, he had long hair, he challenged religous authority).