Liberty University

Date: Feb 01 2012
Major: Fine Arts - Painting/Sculpture/Photography/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
After being raised in an Evangelical Christian family, I chose to attend Liberty University in the hopes of furthering my knowledge of Christ and growing intellectually. It was probably the worst decision of my life. This school is manipulative, narrow-minded, legalistic, dishonest and spiritually abusive (not to mention the aesthetically lacking campus, hostile attitude toward vegetarians, artists and "yankees").

Freshman year I was accused by my roommate of being a freak daily (I have to mention that this roommate later became a hipster and began to copy information off my facebook to better fit in with her new "trendy" hipster friends. It's okay to be weird as long as being weird is trendy).

I'd also like to mention that I am not and was not a "freak" by most of the world's standards. I was an art student, enjoyed foreign films (Pan's Labyrinth, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Departures), didn't eat meat (none of my family does), and was used to drinking wine at family gatherings. These qualities were strange enough to have me ostracized my entire freshman year.

In the 3 1/2 years I attended LU, I had only one kind, genuine, approachable RA. The only lasting friendships I made were with two equally ostracized students who happened to be my roommates sophmore year (we bonded over our mutual dislike of the school and unjust treatment from our two RAs).

Convocation is mandatory 3 times a week. The idea of attending church 3 times a week was new to me, but still exciting. The problem is that this isn't really a chapel. It's like a highly politicized Christian rock concert. One gets the impression that the student body is used as a weapon for the Falwell's political agenda. I remember being persuaded to vote for a local Conservative politician because Liberty students

pay more in food tax than any other University students in the nation

They wanted us to believe the high taxing was a form of religious persecution (forgetting to mention the students at Lynchburg College or Sweet Briar who paid the same taxes). One convocation Jerry Jr. made a statement about Glenn Beck, heavily implying that he was a Christian (something about how Beck believes, like us, that America needs to get back to Jesus Christ and it's Bible-believing core…or something). I later learned that very few Liberty students (at least of the ones I spoke with) knew that Glenn Beck is a Mormon.

I also suffered tremendous spiritual abuse at the hands of an RA during a two-week mission trip. This girl was jealous of the attention I'd received from one of the better-looking guys on the team and went to extreme efforts to punish me for it all

in the name of Christ

I came home feeling absolutely defeated and seriously questioning whether God is real at all. It's something I still question and am desperately trying to find the answer to.

I no longer believe anything I was taught while at Liberty. Although this comment is scattered and disorganized, there were multiple instances of hypocrisy and dishonesty that haunt me still. Bible verses were taken out of context and used to justify people's own selfish means, prejudice and hatred is everywhere, the food is terrible and vegetarians are treated as having a less knowledge of the Bible (because of that verse where God tells Peter or someone that he can eat any kind of meat…they assume that means it's wrong to not eat meat).

Other things the school doesn't want you to know: internet is censored (unless you sign in as a guest)

not just "bad" websites are censored. examples were (until I [or others] appealed them)

peopleofwalmart.com fml.com some website on Icelandic pronunciation
Bild.de - which I needed for my German class itsyoursexlife.com almost any website that mentions wine or vinyards or beer these are the ones i remember appealing. some were fixed, others were not.

Another thing, on my 21st birthday, my best friend, who was pregnant at the time, drove down from DC to surprise me (she and my mom had been planning the surprise for months) only to be told that she was not allowed to stay in my dorm because of her pregnancy (she was unmarried at the time). One would think that with all of their emphasis on the evils of abortion, they would be more kind to those brave women who sacrifice everything to keep their children, rather than raining down judgement and plain rudeness.

There is really so much to say about Liberty University. Very little is positive. Unfortunately discussing my time there is so upsetting and angering that I am rarely able to describe the experience in a clear and orderly way. I can say that I transferred to JMU the second semester of my senior year because I was so miserable, and while at JMU, took a class in which I read "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", a book about a man who survived life in a gulog. I related to this man more than any free, 22-year-old American ever should. I felt that the biggest difference was the weather (Lynchburg vs. Siberia). This is not an exaggeration. Think long and hard before attending Liberty University. Don't be fooled by the CFAW experience (they always make things better on CFAW weekends).