Hey guys, I’m Ryan. I know this is supposed to be anonymous, but I’m not ashamed of what I have to say. I won’t be coming back to ORU, so I have a few things I want to get off my chest:

If you’re a Towers kid, don’t knock EMR folks because I used to. I’ve met amazing guys on supposedly “bad” floors like YB, MOB, and Repub. Do believe, however, it is pretty disgusting.

Chapel feels like it’s designed for middle-aged white people, not a group of diverse college students. Worship is absolutely vanilla, and Dr. Wilson preaching style reminds me of being in a small Baptist church in rural Kentucky. Shouldn’t folks at ORU be looking at ministries like 3D, 180, and Sub30 to see how to minister to college kids?

Despite what everyone says, ORU is not academically rigorous. “Hard” classes here will be difficult at any other college, and actually they’ll normally be easier at ORU. Organic Chemistry here isn’t the hell it is at other schools, and my professors told me in two of my higher-level math courses that the content was watered down compared to that of courses at other colleges. Sure, the Honors Program gives you gen-eds with more busy work, but that doesn’t translate into my major’s coursework. I am thankful, however, for the scholarship I received, so thanks!

Fun fact: the ORU Library has a restricted section. If you’d like to read a book like Harry Potter or Twilight (not sure why you’d want to read the latter lol…), you have to ask a librarian to unlock a special door for you to pick your "evil" book. And this is all because a regent saw one of these books on the shelf and was furious. Only at ORU…

I have had met some absolutely amazing professors here who have really helped me. If you hear about these guys, use them! They’ve given me amazing advice and have written me recommendations that helped me get accepted as a transfer to two amazing schools, one of them an Ivy League university. What I do love about the professors is that they’re at ORU because they want to be.

I’m so glad to never return to the ORU bubble, full of legalistic, antiquated rules (we all know what they are) and some of the folks who completely buy into it. No, I will not miss a former friend turned Gestapo RA who threatened to report me for wearing t-shirts to class or having to watch movies on a laptop in a dorm lobby because girls can’t come into my room. Obviously, if a guy and girl are left alone, they just HAVE to have sex, right?

One of my biggest pet peeves about ORU is the level of judgment folks have for “easy” majors. I’ve heard engineering students, pre-med kids, and even a math professor sneer at the “easy” workloads of business and dance majors. I can speak from experience in the business, math, theatre, chemistry, and physics departments. Science folks, please get off your high horse. As a non-science major, I got great grades in upper level math and science courses without obsessing over it. Sure, some business or dance majors maybe can’t handle the material, but could you handle the countless presentation competitions (for a grade, I add) or the stress of spending 20+ hours a week in performance on top of school work? Everyone needs to realize that no one is twiddling his or her thumbs, and that no one is superior because of a stupid major.

And last and certainly not least, the friends I have made here are genuine, fun, and on fire for God. You mean the world to me!!!

I know this was long, but I had a lot to say. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading. PEACE.

I felt like ORU took a step backwards after Rutland left. Having Bachmann as our graduation speaker was the final straw. It has so much potential, but I feel like there will always be a wall built up between students and those in high positions of the board. Its not like I went expecting liberalism from a rather evangelical university. But I wish they knew that change is sometimes good, and stepping a little left shouldn't result in a slippery slope fallacy. More than anything, I wish they realized that the students are autonomous adults, not children. We need a great relationship with Jesus, but we don't need the amount of control they placed over us.

I'm not too sure what "Turnt up" means, but I think that is what I got before graduation.

I really can't deal with the fact that all the hot guys are taken. There should be a relationship limit of 2 months so all the girls can get a turn

Whoever keeps shining their red laser pointer into my EMR dorm room should probably confess.

I apologize if it sounds like I'm playing the race card but I never dealed with the immaturity, and social clicks in my "urban high school" that i go through everyday here. May be it's because black, Asian, and Hispanic groups aren't afraid to get along with everyone. But it's hard to when most of the white...*scratch that* student body is to ignorant and stuck up in their social clicks and their spoiled, sheltered, self-righteous, and bully of a personalities that most you white kids were like in your prep schools. But yet you white kids can act so holy in front of your friends just as much as you can look down on the everyone else behind their backs.... And I'm mostly speaking to the carcausian students of the freshmen and senior classes. I honestly don't know where I was going with this but I'll just finish with saying that we as a student body can't not be truly unified if we are segregated by race, clubs, or even our sports teams.

All of us had our reasons for going to ORU and staying at ORU. Mine personally was that I received an STI, DUI, and drinking ticket by the time I was even a senior in high school, and growing up as a minister's son I basically understood the direction I was heading. I chose ORU to surround myself with better influences and hopefully develop a better relationship with God in the process. Like many others, I ended up not having that great of an experience. But that's okay. I honestly tried to have a fantastic experience and chose to think about the positive. And while I think that stopped me from developing any sort of useless bitterness, it still unfortunately doesn't change the experiences I had. But I don't hate the school. This may be a wine-induced confession from a previously graduated individual who kind of has no life, but I really wish I had so many friends and great experiences like a lot of you. I yearned for that.

What bugs me the most is that many think of the college as somehow synonymous with Christianity. It may be a Christian school, but it's not Christianity. I think Jesus is a perfect representation of God and what Christianity should be. But ORU is simply a university that I look back on at my alma mater. I could have also had a bad experience at USC or TU if I chose to go there instead. More so, ORU is a Christian college that should be different than a state, but is still run by human individuals who sometimes make poor decisions. But what sucks is I've received a ton of backlash as "one of those" for simply saying I didn't have that great of an experience. I received even more backlash being outspoken in my junior and senior year by trying to make changes in the school. Some of the school's rules were there for decades and needed to change with the times. It's like meeting with your parents because you think your curfew should be extended or removed. It's not because I hate the school, it's because I wanted to make the school more enjoyable for future students. I wanted to get rid of curfew altogether because I think it leads to more dangerous situations such as rape (stuck at a house full of drunk individuals) and more car accidents.

I was talking at shades of brown about a month ago with a former room mate, and one of my old RA's was fed up with my conversation. It was simply about some "typical ORU" experiences we had, not some bitter babble about how much ORU sucks. But this RA came up to me and gave me a mouthful about how if "I hated it, I just should have left and let other people come in my place who would have been less of a pain to deal with and who actually cared about developing a relationship with God." How I was heading in my life in high school, ORU probably saved my life. I met my girlfriend there. I met my room mate I'm still good friends with. I've stood up for the school on multiple occasions when people blast it online assuming we're all a bunch of nitwits receiving fake unaccredited degrees in creationism. But he, like a lot of other ORU students, brought Christianity into it. It wasn't just me being misunderstood as hating the school, I had my actual relationship with God thrown in my face and slammed down because I talked about a negative experience at ORU. Wow. I needed to vent because this has been stabbing at my heart for a good solid month now.

It's okay if you had a bad experience. I know most of mine as a conservative to liberal individual meant finding myself and then having to start consistently defending my faith to people who thought I was all of a sudden going down the "wrong path." In reality I was drawing way closer to God than I ever imagined and haven't touched a recreational drug now in four years. A lot of women warned other women that I was a bad guy because I admitted that I had an STI once. It sucked. But this is mainly to individuals who feel the need to assume those who had bad experiences are either bad Christians or were just looking for an excuse to hate it. Please stop throwing us in a box of bad apples. Many who get the most defensive of ORU spent the entire time with a plethora of friends and not an ounce of time questioning their sexual orientation on a homophobic hallway or having women refuse to text them in friendship because they had gonorrhea once. I met a girl who was so bullied she slept in her car for a week. Many of us came to ORU for the same reasons and stayed until graduation purposely. I'm never going to look back with hatred and bitterness, but I also can't change the experiences into happy ones. I simply look at ORU as my alma mater that helped shape me into who I am today.

I'm a grad who's sexually confused and I feel like there's no one I can talk to about it. I've tried dating women before, but it's never really gone anywhere. The longest relationship I had was about 6 months and I couldn't even kiss her. On the other side, I've had sex with men before, but not since 4 years ago.

I'm afraid to come out, because many of my friends and family are ORU or ex-ORU people and I don't feel like they'd understand. I wish I could just go out on a date with a guy or something to be sure, but I'm scared of being seen by friends and family. I just don't want to feel so alone all the time. Anyone else with similar experiences or advice?