(Courtesy photo)
Laura Pezzini
lpezzini@mustangdaily.net
Business administration junior Katie Hill didn’t come to Cal Poly expecting to find the person she would spend the rest of her life with. Then, she met chemistry senior Paul Smith.
“We actually met at line dancing when he asked me to dance, and I thought he was super weird but I said yes, and then we ended up going to El Salvador with (Slo Cru) and I started to get to know him there,” Hill said. “He eventually asked me to be his girlfriend, and then I said ‘Yeah, we can try this out, but you’re going to have to call my dad to ask permission to date me.’”
Smith made the call. Jump forward to two years later, and the couple is now engaged (as of this past week) and plans to marry next spring after Hill graduates. They are now experiencing the hardships — and the benefits — of preparing for married life while still attaining their degrees.
“Really to me, it’s the obvious option,” Smith said.
“And that’s what I wanted to do, too, so our plans just matched up,” Hill added.
Though getting engaged or even married during college can be seen as counter-cultural, it is not unheard of. According to a 2008 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, 18 percent of undergraduate students said they were married. The percentage seems low, but shows that there is a number of students who are willing to take the road less traveled toward family life.
“I think that’s kind of how it’s supposed to happen,” business administration senior Kaitlen Muhr said. “Relationships should never be forced, they should just kind of work.”
Muhr plans to marry her fiancé, alumnus Branden Mendes, in July just after she graduates.
Hill said time management has been the biggest issue so far. Though engaged for only a short time, she has already experienced the stress of planning a wedding around class and work schedules.
“We’re currently in the planning process, but it’s not like we have long breaks at the same time during the day,” Hill said. “Also, budget-wise, we’re college students and we have a strict budget on a wedding, but to us it’s all worth it.”
Cal Poly Counseling Services Director Martin Bragg said the main issue married couples encounter during college is the added stress of a new marriage in an already stressful environment.
“I think that one of the challenges of being married in college is that any marital relationship requires a fair amount of work and attention to each others’ needs,” Bragg said. “If both the partners are students, their school stress is happening at the same time. You’re having to be obsessed with schoolwork, sometimes to the exclusion of the relationship.”
Counseling Services offers couples counseling for married students, and Bragg said it is more common to see married couples, as opposed to unmarried couples, come in for counseling.
Cal Poly University Housing, however, has not found that there are enough married couples to warrant specific accommodations.
“Our housing program is predominantly designed for single undergrad students,” University Housing director Preston Allen said. “We keep up with what we consider to be significant demands for housing and we try to keep on top of that, and to date I wouldn’t say that many requests have come from married students to live on campus.”
According to Allen this has not yet been an issue, potentially because those students who do get married are mostly upperclassmen already living off campus.
“That’s not to say there haven’t been requests, but it’s not to a degree to which it would jumpstart a program for married and family housing,” Allen said.
One of the important factors in Hill and Smith’s engagement was the input of their family and friends. Hill said upon hearing about the engagement, her family was thrilled.
“My parents are like ‘We’re going to plan this, and this,’ and they’re totally supportive,” Hill said. “My mom had kept asking, ‘When is Paul going to propose?’”
Muhr also said her and Mendes’ families were on board with the decision.
“Our families are both very supportive of our relationship,” Muhr said. “I think it’s because they both knew from the beginning that we are meant to be together, but we’re also very lucky to have such wonderful families in the first place.”
Smith said he is happy to have support from his friends — many of whom, he said, are also engaged.
“I think what’s nice is that we have a lot of friends who are engaged,” Smith said. “You kind of have those friends who are going through the same spot, so you can talk to them and get advice that way.”
Bragg said family plays an important role in the success of a marriage, and even more so for married couples who are still working on their undergraduate degrees.
“It can be especially difficult for college students because of parents’ financial involvement in the students lives,” Bragg said. “I think that the level of dependence of the spouse on his or her parents can really impact that marriage.”
Muhr said though people who don’t know her and Mendes take the “but you’re so young” route, everyone who does know the couple never questions their age.
“I think the most common reaction we get when we tell people who don’t know us or our relationship is that we’re young,” Muhr said. “But from anyone who knows us, our age isn’t really ever mentioned.”
Even through the stress of college and the financial factors that come into play, the biggest focus for couples who choose to be engaged or married during college is the idea of being together.
“Transitioning from college life to the real world isn’t exactly fun, but being married means that you have your best friend there for you all the time no matter what, and that there’s always someone in your corner,” Muhr said. “It makes moving, new jobs and the real world seem a lot less scary.”