College is full of challenges, opportunities, and brand new experiences. One opportunity that arises for some college students is getting engaged or married. There are several couples on Wittenberg’s campus that are either married or engaged. However, the general consensus between many of the couples on campus with rings is that they don’t enjoy telling other students about the engagement or marriage.
“Lots of people judge you,” said Kelsey Johnson, who is 23 and engaged. “I get the question a lot, ‘Why would you want to get married at 23?’ Usually I won’t talk about [it] because of the questions I get.”
Senior student Regina Gasser is engaged to Wittenberg alumnus Jake Sigafoos.
She commented, “People don’t get it. Lots of people say, ‘Oh yeah see how long that lasts.’ I get a lot of weird silent judgment and in the past it has ruined friendships.”
Senior Beatrice Nichols is married and lives in Springfield with her husband, Travis, who is attending Clark State. She says that mainly students and adults ask her how old she is when they learn that she is married or say that she is much too young to be married.
However, engaged sophomore Christy Baldwin had the opposite experience.
“I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything at all,” said Baldwin. “I came into college engaged and people accepted me.”
Many of the couples discussed the challenges they faced being engaged or married in college.
“There’s a lot of extra stress,” said Nichols. “I have to designate time studying and time with my husband. There are different responsibilities at home than at school. Tax season is coming up and there are a lot of things that are really stressful.”
Christy Baldwin had quite a different problem.
“I was at a job interview once over the summer and they saw my ring and told me I was way too young to be getting married and to enjoy life,” said Baldwin. “I said, ‘I am enjoying life’ but they didn’t give me the job.”
Although these engaged and married students leave very different lives from single students, many still are very involved on campus. Some organizations in which the engaged and married students are involved in include sororities, C.A.B.L.E., film society, Wittenberg American Marketing Association, work studies, The Torch, internships, tutoring, doing research with professors, hall government, etc.
In addition to being involved on campus, almost all of the students who were interviewed for this article were either planning on going to graduate school or going into their careers after finishing school at Wittenberg.
Kelsey Johnson commented, “Lots of people think if you are engaged or married, that’s it, your life is over. But that is so not what I’m about.”
Nichols said, “I really don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything in college. I’ve done everything I wanted to do here.”
Gasser also remarked, “Sometimes it’s hard because most of my friends are single, so they all can go out and have fun. When I go out, I can go out but not have that much fun. But I feel like I won the lottery with the guys here and when times get tough, I go see him.”
I remember being single at college. There were some benefits, to be sure, but I also struggled with needing and not having that one person who knew me, loved me, and was committed to me no matter what. When you find that person, age is not important. Everything else falls in line–even the so called “fun” or “life experience.” In fact, most people I talk to lament about regrets in college social life.