Y the U? Y not the Y?

So Cory (my favorite blog follower by far) asked why the University of Utah? Value, Location, Flexibility.

That’s the short answer. If it were only that easy. To be honest, Utah was not my first choice only because I got my undergraduate degree in marketing from here. I felt like I should use my grad school experience to gain a different perspective. But the University in Utah is in Utah, which is good for me because I’m planning to be in Utah for a while after I graduate. If I had left Utah for school, I had planned to return afterwards. So when choosing schools to which to apply, I wanted a local one. For me, there were two I could consider…Utah and (gasp) BYU.

BYU has a good program. But they are BYU, otherwise known as the Y. In my own defense, I went to a recruiting dealy down there. I knew ten minutes into the 2 hour session (I want my other 110 minutes back) that it was not my cup of tea. It’s a Mormon school. I’m not a Mormon. Got nothing against Mormons. Some of my best friends are Mormon. But the culture is very palpable on the BYU campus and I think I would leave a bad taste in Provo’s mouth. Honor code? Who is this man you call “Honor Code”? Their “can’t do” list reads like my Friday night.

So once the essays were written and interviews were conducted (I had to drive to Las Vegas for one…fun, but what a pain) it came down to Utah and a fancy outfit back East. The other school was in Pittsburgh. I went and visited. Fell in love with the town. Found an apartment 5 minutes from campus with a fireplace. And the school was pretty prestigious, especially in my field. Plus, I’ve never lived anywhere but Salt Lake. I’d like to. Not because I don’t like it here, just because I feel like it’s something I need to do. Test my mettle.

Long story short, I could not justify $110K in debt at 6.5%-8.5% for an education that was not going to get me any closer to a job in Utah than staying here would. Utah is a great school. Prestige for the money is unbeatable. And the program is flexible. This isn’t the University of Indiana. You can taste all the chocolates before picking one once you get into the real world. This was important because, when I was applying to schools, I was considering veering off the marketing road and onto the finance path. That was, of course, before the finance path led right to the toilet.

Did I make the right choice in schools? I’ll never know, really. But earlier today, and this is totally true, the Gambler was playing over the muzak in the bookstore. Hate country, but not old country. I was frantically glancing back and forth to make sure no one was around to hear me singing to myself. I’ve known those lyrics for over two decades. And on the other side of the binder shelf, I heard the woman behind information desk singing to herself, too. This is my kind of place.