I never recall any professor slamming my religion... unless you count a coffee joke one told that was genuinely funny. I never had any students around me attack my religion, and I never had anyone try to prevent me freely exercising my religion.

Part of my time there I was somewhat involved in the Institute program, the latter part I wasn't (mostly a function of school workload and not the program itself) but there was ample opportunity to meet other like-minded LDS kids in class, on campus and elsewhere.

Occasionally if you went up by the Union Building there would be non-student Christian groups handing out anti-Mormon literature, but I have had far more of that walking into the Salt Lake Temple or the University of Texas campus than I ever did at the U.

So I don't know what I did wrong to miss all of the things my college was doing that was anti-Mormon, but I simply didn't experience it and I wasn't trying to avoid it. I had plenty of friends, Mormon or not, took plenty of 'Liberal Arts' classes where that sort of stuff might in theory be more prevalent, and it didn't happen.

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen, but certainly not in the volumes that often get exaggerated about here. The school isn't built around being anti-Mormon, nor are its students. If you don't believe that, next time call security and see how they feel about boorish behavior.

It is certainly possible to attend the U and have a great experience as an LDS person without any sort of opposition. I would say it is common for this to happen. I've had many friends and siblings who have all had that same experience. I've also had some stalwart friends and former mission companions who went to BYU and their last experience with the LDS church directly was the day they walked off campus bitter and angry, never darkening the door of a chapel again.

The worst party I've ever been to was in Provo with BYU students. The stuff that was going on there I don't even want to describe other than to say it remains to date the biggest example of moral depravity I've seen in my life. Me and my friend (also a U student at the time) left our BYU cohorts behind and pre-ubiquitous cell phone usage time, spent an hour trying to get hold of some other people we knew down there to give us a ride back to SLC.

But from those experiences I don't conclude that BYU is going to cause you to lose your testimony or do things that would make Hollywood blush. Instead I choose to recognize that it is the actions of a tiny minority, and don't transpose it onto the majority. The same thing in a crowd at a stadium... a couple of guys say awful stuff, recognize it is the action of those couple of guys, and not the action of the 1000 other people around you who have left you alone. It is hard to do, I get it but those are the realities.

Then take courage yourself and go and get security and get them escorted out of there... chances are everyone else will be happy you did.