Serious relationships can put a damper on career options and location.

When closing in on the end of your college career, is it wise to be tied down to someone? As if trying to find a job and a career path isn’t stressful enough, but add another person to the mix, and it gets twice as hard.

It is easy to say that you will take the best job opportunity, or go to the graduate school that best suits your educational needs, but if that job or school is across the country from your significant other, will you really up and leave?

Even if you think you will take the best opportunity, no matter where it is, significant others usually play a role in that decision. Not many people want to live across the world from a person they love.

I have been applying to law schools and trying to decide where I am heading after graduation. Four months ago, I was in a relationship, which made my boyfriend factor in the whole process. Now that I am no longer in a relationship, it is completely my decision to go wherever is best for me, which is making my decision so much easier.

My cousin is a year older than me and in a relationship. She is pretty insistent that he is

“the one.” She was lucky enough to get a job right out of college in the St. Louis area, but he had to move to Dallas.

Now, the only thing she is concerned about is taking a job in Dallas.

She is going to leave her whole family behind and find a job across the country to be with her boyfriend. Not to mention, the only jobs she is interviewing for are for lower paid positions than where she is in now.

Being in a relationship can cause people to limit their location, which in turn limits the job options and graduate school choices. With the economy in the state it is in, and getting a job out of college being scarcer than usual, it is not smart for college students to limit their options right off the bat because of a boyfriend, or girlfriend.

Then, those people who do take the best opportunities and get located states away from their significant other, end up spending a majority of their money going back and forth for visits. Either way, you find yourself in a lose-lose situation.

You either take the best opportunity, and have to live away from your loved one and spend a chunk of change on visiting, or you sacrifice your future career for the one you love.

Sacrificing for a boyfriend, or girlfriend is a gamble because things happen. What happens when you pick up your life for the person you love, and he or she ends the relationship? Now you have no significant other, and you are stuck at a mediocre job.

When nearing the end of college, it is beneficial to be unattached. This allows you more freedom for jobs and graduate schools. It also decreases the stress in an already highly stressful situation.

Your career path and future endeavors should be based on solely the best opportunity possible, but when you throw extra attachments into the mix it can cloud your vision.

Abby Allgire is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].