‘Til Class Do Us Part

While many students find themselves juggling part-time jobs with full-time course loads, some students plan for the big day – and that doesn’t mean graduation.
Love is definitely in the air for students who are engaged and planning their wedding days right alongside their 15-credit semester. Many students have already married and are figuring out how to handle marriage, as well as that Science B requirement. Just take a look around: the sight of a bejeweled ring finger is less rare than a diamond itself. And it’s not just happening here. Weddings and marriages happen for young women all over the country, many of whom decide to marry while still in college.

According to the latest U.S. Census,
32.8 percent of women aged between 15 and 24 have wed along with 41.6 percent women aged 25 to 34.

So how are they coping with engagement
or marriage and college life here on Main Campus? Let’s take a walk down the aisle with some of Temple’s future and current
brides to find out.

Lauren Ehly is not like most typical college brides. Not only is she is a senior communications major, but her fiance, Michael, a soldier stationed in Germany, has just returned to the States. The two who have been dating since 2002 got engaged in 2004 and had to deal with a bi-coastal engagement – one with a six-hour time difference.

Ehly wishes to have a career in the fashion and said she hasn’t been too conflicted
by wedding arrangements getting in the way of school or her life. Now only a few credits away from graduation and months from her nuptials, she isn’t too worried about all the planning and preparations
coming her way.

“We’ll have each other and that’s what matters most,” she said.

Some students use their breaks from school to party in Key West, Fla., catch up with old friends from high school or just plain sleep in. Elena Gonzalez is planning a wedding. Gonzalez, 29, a senior broadcast
journalism major, is getting married in September to her fiance George, 32 (who proposed to her in Love Park).

“Having five classes, an internship and working doesn’t leave me much time to make decisions about things for the wedding
such as what centerpieces to have and what invitations to select,” Gonzalez said.

“My time limitations have forced me to make decisions about wedding plans a lot quicker, which actually could be a good thing too.” Gonzalez said the one thing helping to quell the stress of school and planning was to “get most of the big decisions about the wedding out of the way first.”

So what do the pros think about all this? Carrie L. Lukas of the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Women’s Forum, as well as author of “Sex Ms. Education,” said young women can have a balance. “Getting married [and going to school or having a career] is completely compatible,”
Lukas said. Lukas supports the idea that women don’t have to give up their school or work identities when they marry; they simply have to work at it.

“Women will always face challenges, it’s just a matter of finding a balance that works for you and your partner” Lukas said.

Then again, it’s a different story when you are balancing college, work, marriage and a child. Just ask 26-year-old senior communications major Mhari Scott, who has been married for almost two years and is a mother. She has found her experience to be at times “utterly and completely overwhelming.”

Scott met her husband Craig, 27, on campus and found that one of their biggest challenges was the loss of the carefree life. “Neither of us had any personal space or any leisure time to speak of,” Scott said. “We formed a lot of bad conflict management habits during that time period that we are slowly sorting through now.”

Though she sees her college life and married life as two different entities, Scott said she thinks the most important thing for college-age couples to remember is “first and foremost, you’re friends, so be kind to each other.”

Aly Semigran can be reached at ams@temple.edu.