While some students are single, dating or in long-term relationships, there are other students that have taken the final step with each other and gotten engaged.

“We both mutually felt that we shouldn’t wait [to get engaged] until after graduation because we both knew we were going to be together,” John Frelich, senior agricultural business major, said. “Taking the next big step of being engaged just took the relationship a bit further,” Frelich asked his girlfriend of three years to marry him.

“We both have talked about post-graduation plans and took into consideration each others opportunities,” Frelich said. “Once we figured those things out, we knew we were mature enough and very willing to work alongside each other as an engaged and soon to be married couple.”

For this couple, things in their life have stayed relatively normal, Frelich said. They spend their time planning their wedding now ,though.

“We both love going out with friends and are still writing papers and taking exams,” Frelich said. “People look towards us for guidance and assistance for their own relationships. All of our friends support our decision to be engaged and feel we are heading in the right direction of life at such a young age.”

Joe Giacalone, a senior mechanical engineering major with a mathematics minor, knew the time was right for him when he decided to propose to his girlfriend.

“We didn’t really feel like it made any difference if we got engaged before or after graduation,” Giacalone said. “When things are right, you know.”

For him and his girlfriend, things have also stayed pretty normal.

“We were extremely close before that and if anything, it’s made both of us closer and given our families a chance to get closer also,” Giacalone said.

As for being in school and being engaged, Giacalone said that if he had any doubts about it not being the right decision, he wouldn’t have made it.

His fiancée, Jackie Mulrooney, an elementary education major, said that being engaged has not only brought them as a couple together, but their families as well.

“He’s my best friend, and that’s just a great feeling,” Mulrooney said.