Anybody have experience with Utah Valley University? I'm considering pursuing an MBA there but to be honest i'm really nervous about it being based out of Utah County. There isn't really anything wrong with that perse, but I'm afraid of large church influence.

I got my Bachelor's in Legal Studies there. It was a fairly decent program and was ABA approved, which a small minority of them are.

To be honest, most of the tenured professors were lousy. Though there were a couple of excellent ones. The adjuncts, most of them local attorneys, were often quite good.

I guess if I were young and into the college social scene, the mormon influence would be stiffling. It is definately there and probably much more so now that Holland's spawn is in charge.

But I was working full-time and going to school full time and was a single mother. So I went there for class and went home. I did have one teacher that I had to go to the Dean about because he made disparaging remarks about non-mormon students. I was told I wasn't the first one to bring it up and that was the last semester he taught.

There are several excellent professors who are there because BYU was suffocating them. Dr. Laura Hamblin, an English professor, is fabulous. She is a long-time exmo but suprisingly is the sister of mormon apologist and Dan Peterson clone, Bill Hamblin. If you're already in Utah Valley, it's not a bad option. I can't think of any other reason to go there, however.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2015 12:28PM by NormaRae.

I got my MBA at UVU in the original cohort.

You have nothing to worry about. My group (don't know if they still do it this way, but they split the class into 6 groups of 4-5 apiece) had a couple active Mormons, a couple never-Mo's, and a couple ex-Mo's. Of the 6 or so women in the class, we had two in our group, who were some of the smartest and hardest-core capitalists I've ever met (one was Russian/Soviet, the other a rock-solid accountant).

There's no social scene other than with your group with the MBA program. I hardly ever left the Woodbury building.

Of the MBA programs in Utah, there were really only three viable ones when I applied -- UofU (1-hour long commute & expensive; no thanks), BYU (they don't let ex-Mo's in), and UVU. I'm honestly glad I did it.

Many of the teachers are pretty hard-core capitalists who will not look kindly on ill-informed social justice warriors. Many of them are also not Mormon; just understand that the kind of personality that teaches business classes will overlap with the very pragmatic Mormon mindset.

As an ex-Mo, I found the program to be a mostly positive experience.

Well-informed social justice warriors don't get into MBA programs. Just sayin'.

None other than our own Jesus Smith gave a presentation there about his dealings with LDS Inc. and their lapdogs who were hassling him about editing MormonThink...

I'm still on the mailing list of one of the deans of Student Services, and I promise you, that lady is a "bulldog for secular education."

Also, to add to what Norma Rae said, that was one of the first Exmormon "get-togethers" we had (where I met board luminaries ihidmyself and imaworkingonit). There was a screening of the new Book of Abraham video that had just been released by IRR...

BF got his earth sciences degree there and liked it. He's now a geologist for the BoR. A few friends also have various degrees from UVU and have mixed things to say about it.

Forbes ranks it #602 in universities in the US, and #105 in the "west."
Good student to prof ratio. Costs about the same as CalState here in California (if you're a Utah resident).

Not much of a graduate program, apparently. Out of 30,500 students, less than 200 are grad students.

http://www.forbes.com/colleges/utah-valley-university/

For comparison, my alma mater (Cal State Fullerton) has roughly the same # of students (38,325), but over 5,000 of them are grad students. It's ranked #368 overall, #71 in the "west."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2015 05:31PM by ificouldhietokolob.

UVU's MA program has only been around since 2010, and they only offer degrees in 3 disciplines: MBA, MEd, and Master of Nursing.

It's, in my opinion, a good value as long as you know what you're getting. Unless you go to an Ivy or an institution with recognition (like BYU's Accounting program), one MBA is as good as the next.

Thanks for the feedback here! I'm surprised I hadn't heard of the university now seeing that it is actually fairly large.

I am kind of surprised to see all the posts come up about higher education now, so i'll ask for opinions on MBA's. I know my reasons for looking at getting one but I keep getting scared by the amount of time outside of work it will take

Can't help you there. I got an MS (mathematics).
Only observation I can make is that back in my university days, lots of people in the MBA program were getting an MBA because...um...they didn't really know why. It seemed like a "good degree to get."
Meanwhile, the ones in the science/math grad programs were largely dedicated geeks, getting the degree because they were intensely dedicated to the subject they were studying.

If YOU know why you want an MBA, and what you're going to do with it, you're already well ahead of the crowd :) Good luck.

It used to be a community college feeder school for BYU...once upon a time.