By Apoorvaa Mandar Bichu, Jessica Gonzalez, and Katie Mumm
Notebooks are strewn all over Laura Higueras’ table. She has just finished a long day and although tired, she is eager to hear the familiar ring of her cellphone announcing an incoming video call from her boyfriend Dani Arveras. Although the time difference between Spain and Omaha is only six hours, between tennis and maintaining her 4.0 GPA, the best time to catch up with Arveras is either when she wakes up in the morning or just after her classes are done.
Higueras is a marketing and BIA senior and a member of Creighton’s tennis team. She has been with Arveras for the past three years, ever since they met at a party in Madrid, Spain during the summer of 2018. Higueras describes feeling an “instant spark” the moment she met Arveras.
A big challenge for Higueras right now is balancing her long distance relationship, while keeping up with her academics and extracurriculars. According to a study done by Roberts and Pistole (2009), as many as 75% of college students may choose to engage in a long-distance romantic relationship.
Higueras says she is often worried about what the future holds because she wants to build a future in the United States, but she also wants to eventually transition to a life-long commitment with Arveras. Despite the skepticism surrounding the longevity of long-term relationships, a 2018 survey showed that as many as 58% of LDRs end up surviving the distance.
Arveras still has two years left to complete his college degree in Spain, while Higueras plans to graduate in Fall 2021 and then get a job or join graduate school in case she is unable to find employment.
Higueras is not the only international student concerned about maintaining a relationship while working toward an academic and professional future. Joanna Conings, a graduate student from Belgium, has been dating her boyfriend David McGuire for two years now, having met him as an exchange student in Fall 2018.
McGuire, an English and environmental science senior, is set to graduate this spring. Conings felt an attraction to McGuire from the beginning, when she met him through Creighton’s Global Ambassador Program, which pairs American students with international students to help them adjust to the university.
Although McGuire was not Conings’ specific global ambassador, he and his friends played a major role in helping her acclimatize to American collegiate life, she said.
After a few weeks of friendship, Conings made the first move and expressed her attraction toward McGuire. “I thought he was cute because he held the door open for me, and helped me with the copy machine. I even pretended to be interested in this cookie game he was playing to show him how much I liked him,” Conings laughed.
“I appreciated it,” said McGuire. “It clearly worked out,” he said, reflecting on how far they’d come since then, having officially entered into a relationship when Conings returned to Creighton in Fall 2019, as a graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in English and creative writing.
This fall, Conings plans to join University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue her Master’s of Arts in French, while McGuire will join Creighton’s Law School. Despite being close by, Conings is worried about the future, as she misses being with her family in Belgium but also wants to stay near McGuire.
At the end of the day, love has no cultural barriers. While Conings and Higueras continue to find ways to balance their relationships with their academic lives, we will continue the conversation about the numerous experiences of international students in our next episode of Diving into Diversity.
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