<p>It depends on the school.</p>
<p>I’d say that Oral Roberts, Liberty and Bob Jones might not be the best choices if you want to work in the secular world - or be able to work in both.</p>
<p>Bangemoeder - you may have personal concerns/qualms, but, of course, I assume you, as a hiring manager, are very well-versed in the regulations found in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, right? All that lovely stuff about not discriminating against someone based on his/her religious beliefs, whether in hiring, firing, or any other terms. Sounds familiar, I hope, given your role.</p>
<p>Here’s an idea for hiring managers: read the resume, focus on the experience, interview the applicant, and go from there. I doubt that most hiring managers could pick out many of these “Christian” or religious-affiliated colleges anyway just based on the name, with the exception of those schools still containing the word “Christian” in the name. And in that case, if one were going to make any assumption, why would the first thought be whether that person would be able to do the tasks required without mentioning Jesus’ name? I shop at a local grocery store and have personal knowledge that at least a couple of the clerks faithfully attend a large denomination in town, and you know what? They are able to ring up my groceries and, as much as I personally enjoy talking about Christ and the Bible, the topics never come up. I have worked in many offices that were full of self-proclaimed Christians doing secular work, and, surprise surprise, as they were doing those engineering tasks in the industry for which you recruit, they were able to do their work without quoting a single scripture. What kind of counseling would an HR person be doing? You don’t think an HR employee who graduated from a so-called Christian college would be able to explain health benefits and payroll without bringing up Jesus?</p>
<p>This perspective that Christians can only approach the world from a very narrow, uneducated, uncritical view is so absurd to me and reflects such a degree of ignorance - and talk about thinking that is uncritical to an exponential degree - that I don’t have time, nor the interest, in trying to enlighten you. If you pursued your own liberal arts degree at a secular university, your education failed you and the school’s accreditation did not prevent ignorance from walking away with a diploma.</p>
<p>Finally, this statement of yours really boggles my mind: “Do Christian colleges offer relevant classes on how to address real problems with non believers in a non-religious context?” What kinds of classes do you think students are taking at Christian colleges? I can only speak about my experience going to a small Christian college for my first two years. Let’s see - I took Calculus, Honors English (in which I read a whole slew of literature that never mentioned Christ’s name - all secular stuff), Chemistry (in a real science lab), Political Theory and Philosophy (for which I was assigned the hardly Christian Machiavelli, along with Plato, Aristotle, Hume, to name a few - when have you read any of these works?), Speech and Debate (and in state and national competitions, not a one of my speeches was a sermon), and, dare I say, Old Testament and New Testament History and Geography (in which I looked at real maps, and archaeological artifacts, and my professor read from his Hebrew OT and his Greek NT, translating to English as he read - he was a Harvard-educated PhD, by the way.)</p>
<p>For those desiring to go to college at a Christian college, forget about some hiring manager’s biases or some future employer. When it comes to the academics, focus on whether your professors know their stuff and challenge you to learn. When it comes to the religious classes, focus on whether the Bible is the foundation or not. College, Christian or not, is too expensive to go just to find a mate, so keep that in mind, and have a plan to pursue truth but also get practical training for a job in which you can use the talents that God has blessed you with. And pray that you don’t have to deal with biased people, but, of course, any well-read Christian knows that bias, not to mention persecution, is just part of the life.</p>
<p>^^^ I’m sure there are still hiring managers who align with the KKK too and feel there is nothing wrong about it - or feel that women can’t do a job equally as men just because of that extra X chromosome. It’s sad. I don’t feel folks should align their lives because of those who are (illegally) prejudiced in hiring. For colleges one should look for decent academics and a decent fit. Pending the individual, this could be a Christian school or it could be secular. IRL I’m not seeing any difference in grads finding jobs even if there are a few prejudiced hiring managers out there somewhere.</p>
<p>Depends on where you live and what career you are pursuing. I believe it would be preferred in the South and states that have high religiosity, but shouldn’t matter to more liberal cities.</p>
<p>Given Chesterton’s reply (#62) to innocent questions posed in #53 and #55 (questions reflecting hypothetical “what if” scenarios any potential candidate would be subjected to, regardless of what type of college they graduated from), I am left to conclude that an employer’s concern about the ability of conservative Christian college graduates to function well in today’s multicultural world is in some cases indeed warranted. There was no need to attack my education (engineering degrees, 6 years of Latin), nor my ability to think critically. Please let’s all just get along and use this forum to learn more about environments that differ from the one we each live in every day.</p>
<p>One reputable Christian college is Wheaton. Almost any employer will recognize that name.</p>
<p>Bob Jones has been looked down upon in recent years. I would say Pepperdine is the best and most reputable Christian college.</p>
<p>I loved Latin, and only had the opportunity to take it for three years, so I envy you, Bangemoeder, just a teeny tiny bit. Here’s to you:</p>
<p>Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.</p>
<p>Die dulci fruimini :)</p>
In the Northeast it will be a negative. In positions that require working with international settings, it will be negative. In high tech and biotech, it will be a negative. Religion is a very private affair outside the south and there is concern that someone who has attended a conservative religious college will have a narrow world view (I don’t mean Georgetown, ND and that ilk) Conservative Protestantism is viewed very negatively by a lot of people outside the South. There is a sense that the education is inferior and missing or even denying parts of the traditional canon . No one wants conflict in their company, and so a person who might be seen as overly preoccupied with dogma is seen negatively. PS I am a Christian.
Depends on the school. Employers clammer over themselves for Georgetown, BC and ND grads. However, they aren’t going to be overly excited about a Liberty grad. So it largely depends on the school.
I am not a Christian, but reading some of the replies in this thread is building sympathy for Christians…are you really telling me that the response to the idiocy and intolerance flowing from the secular pieties of the “Northeast” is good reason to abandon Christian colleges?
I do know this. Some of the deepest graduate students in mathematics and physics I met at Chicago and MIT came from colleges with a definite Christian heritage… do not confuse the Jon Stewart, David Letterman, and Chris Matthews types for men of wisdom or intelligence.
A Christian college will be a big plus for some hiring managers, and meaningless to most others because most do not have name recognition. Boston College and even Notre Dame have enough name recognition that many people have to think twice that they are Catholic.
Notre Dame for example, however, wants to get the contraception and abortion coverage exemption codified so that they don’t even have to sign a form that says they refuse on grounds of religious objection. They say that signing that form is supporting contraception and abortion implicitly. Like, if you sign a form that says “No, I don’t want my child fingerprinted” it implicitly means you agree with children getting fingerprinted.
Anyway, I have been part of the hiring process in the past, and I also screen transfers and graduate students to help others at my university. If any student went to a college I was not familiar with, yes I would check if it is accredited, and I would likely check its USN&WR ranking. Being a Christian or Catholic or Jewish or whatever university would be immaterial to me.
I would have to say that “Christian heritage” is pretty common without specifically being founded as a Christian college. I went to a university founded by a Deist, and I was very happy with the lack of religion in my classes and around campus. That environment might be alarming to someone who is more used to a homogeneous Christian community.
It may also make a significant difference whether you are looking at national or regional employers, and who the HR person is that making the initial screening of applications and his/her assessment of Christian higher education. For example, a study was done of successful/thriving health care facilities (including long term care facilities) and their administrators in the state of Minnesota. The number 1 characteristic that was common across the institutions? Their executive directors were graduates of Concordia College (Moorhead). So certain programs from certain institutions have exceedingly strong reputations with employers.
Christian colleges, no, for profit schools like Phoenix, absolutely.
I live near Gordon College, and I know that a lot have grads have struggled in the Boston area with Gordon’s reputation, especially after the dean signed the pro-discrimination petition to try to exempt the college from laws dictating that hiring policies can’t discriminate against LGBT individuals. Being PC and accepting towards every sexuality is big here in the Boston area, so it can definitely be seen as negative if someone is a Gordon grad, even if they personally were not against gay marriage (and I know tons of kids at Gordon that have no issues with homosexuality). I think someone in the South and Midwest would have fewer issues with a Christian college degree.