For some, serious relationships in college are a joke.

Too much time wasted.

Too much energy spent.

Too many different experiences lost.

For a growing number of students, however — whether through marriage, engagement or a shared lease — meaningful and long-lasting relationships are the only way to go.

Elizabeth Vara is a junior in chemical engineering who got engaged over Christmas break. Her boyfriend of three years proposed to her on New Year’s Eve in a very Sweet Home Alabama way.

“He asked me, ‘Well what do you want to marry me for?’ and I said, ‘So I can kiss you anytime I want,'” Vara said, referring to the line from the movie starring Reese Witherspoon. “Then he got down on one knee and said, ‘Well, will you marry me?'”

She has decided to set the wedding date for after her graduation in 2008, because she said she thought it would be a little overwhelming to do school and plan a wedding at the same time.

However, Vara said she does find herself frequently thinking of it.

“Half the time I’ll be doing homework on the Internet and I’m like, ‘OK, I get to look at wedding dresses now,'” she said.

It has yet to influence her schoolwork negatively though.

“I’m not that bad yet,” she said. “I guess it’s because I know I [have] so much longer to go.”

Matt Mullins, a master’s student in English, and his wife Jenny, a junior in mathematics education, were married during her freshman year.

They met as children at Faith Baptist Church, and ended up being high school sweethearts.

Towards the end of Jenny’s senior year, Matt took her to her favorite beach, Emerald Isle, for a day trip. She said he had acted weird all day, and while walking on the beach he proposed.

“He got down on one knee and started [to propose],” Jenny said. “And I can’t even remember half of what he said because I was screaming through it.”

They originally decided to wait a year to tie the knot; but after a while, they decided that was too long of an engagement.

“We had planned to get married at the end of May, and decided in October that was just too long,” Jenny said. “So Spring Break seemed like the most obvious answer to that.”

Matt was a student at Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest at the time, and Jenny was a freshman at N.C. State, so their breaks were not the same. She said they only had about three days to enjoy themselves after the wedding. They went on a second honeymoon in August to make up for it.

“I was glad because we got to enjoy the Bahamas trip in August instead of right after being married, stressed out and everything,” Jenny said.

She said it was difficult to return to the everyday school routine after spring break.

“I wouldn’t recommend it. Wait until the summer or Christmas break or something like that,” Jenny said, laughing. “It’s a lot all at once. And you don’t want to go back to class, that’s for sure.”

Jenny and Matt own their own home, and while it means more responsibility, they said they feel it is more practical than renting, because they felt like they were throwing their money away.

As far as money goes, they always manage to make ends meet. Matt set his schedule up so he could work full-time and attend graduate school full-time, and Jenny substitute teaches part-time.