YOUR EXPERIENCES AS AN ACADEMIC

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Zevaeros on September 29, 2008 at 1:46pm

During my brick and mortar days (I went to college for a few years before quitting, then finished my degree online a few years back), there were three things that stood out for me:

1. In the student center (read: place I went for the arcade games), while actually taking an escalator to class, someone behind me asked if I wanted to attend bible study. Don't recall the exact conversation, but it was fairly polite -- he just asked me "why not?" when I turned him down and I think I said something on the order of "just not my thing".

2. There was some event at the same campus where some martial arts demonstration was going on, with some board breaking and the like. Okay, I was interested. Then the main demonstrator (let's call him "Punchy") whipped out a bible and started shouting how he couldn't do all this cool stuff without the power of Jesus etc. etc. etc. I just left.

3. I recall a friend of mine who, while fairly intelligent and not pushy about his beliefs, wouldn't play part of Warcraft because it involved the ability to resurrect your guys into skeletons or some such. Um, okay.

Okay, there was one teacher in my elementary days that caught some flap over being openly religious (a music teacher), but I really don't recall the whole fuss about that since I might've been seven or eight at the time.

Nothing really extreme here, sorry.

Permalink Reply by Daley on October 7, 2008 at 5:29am

My college experience (state college) was very comfortable as an atheist.
Being southern, we are generally all beaten with bibles from birth. I actually expected there to be more backlash.

The most common thing I saw was other students who were raised christian, but don't practice and don't consider themselves religious. Oddly enough, they refused to admit they disbelieve despite their ...well... disbelief.

I guess it's hard facing the truth.

Permalink Reply by deepthought42 on November 8, 2008 at 4:06pm

I loved being in my college's concert choir last semester, though it was a bit weird being the only graduate student. Also throughout the semester I noticed almost every other student in that class was a church-going jesus person. They were all nice to me, but I made sure never to bring up my religious beliefs. And I certainly didn't like having to "participate" in a catholic mass during our spring trip to north carolina. I say "participate" because we didn't have to sing along if we didn't know the words, so I just stood there quietly with the book closed.

Permalink Reply by Fabio on July 7, 2010 at 5:19am

During the 4 years I studied for my BA in translation studies at a public (state) university I didn't have many encounters with religion or religiosity. There was a student union group running for student council and they had a clear Catholic inspiration, but it was really never of any consequence to me. One year, though, a teacher from the English department organised English-language Bible study groups, claiming it was a way for us to exercise our language skills. That was when I found out he was actually a Protestant pastor. Needless to say, I refused to attend - and still aced the exam. I didn't bother to complain with other teachers about what I considered to be undue proselytising because I didn't think they'd do anything about it. In retrospect, I should have tried.