Utah State University

Date: Jun 13 2013
Major: Animal Studies (This Major's Salary over time)
Utah State is a great school, but I didn't realize it until my junior or senior year, when the classes got more specialized and smaller. While there are good teachers here, many of them are very closed minded and have a

it's my way or the highway

kind of an attitude. I was once mocked by a professor for having interests in a subject that he considered unimportant. There are other professors, though, who really influenced me for the better and were the most supportive people I have ever known. My advice, as far as professors are concerned, is to just tread carefully until you find the ones who respect you and support you. I'd definitely recommend working with them on research projects or asking for class help, because they will go above and beyond to help you. The others will bring you down, but you'll know who they are right away. Avoid those ones and you'll be fine.

The honors department is wonderful. It's challenging and really encourages student-professor relationships, but they won't let you fall if you have trouble. In a sense they became my family at USU. If you can be in honors, I definitely recommend it.

As far as the social life goes, the other reviewers on here are right. If you're not LDS you will have a hard time finding people to be friends with and/or date. This school definitely is made of two extremes: the conservative religious zealots and the hardcore partiers. There's not much in between. After a couple of years, though, if you can live with it, you'll find your niche. If you're not religious, I recommend joining SHAFT (although I think it's called something else now). I met some of my greatest friends through that club. I guess my warning for the other students would be the same as it was for the professors - tread carefully, but don't write them all off.

The mormons are known for being good looking people, so everyone on campus is put together and done up. It's definitely not the typical college campus that I saw when I left for graduate school, where people don't do their hair or put on make-up everyday before class. Be warned that to fit in you'll have to get some nice clothes and be into your appearance.

Having said all that, I would still recommend USU. The counter-culture there (the minority of people who aren't mormon) is very strong and supportive of one another. If it wasn't for all of the negative things that happened to me as an undergrad, I would have never found myself. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but going to USU definitely grounded me and gave me a lot of strength to hold to my beliefs.

For all the out-of-staters, if you're thinking of attending this school, I would say go ahead. Last I heard the school has really increased it's recruitment of out-of-state kids because of the change in the missionary age, so the LDS population will probably decrease at USU over the next few years.