The couple has yet to set a date because they feel they're not yet ready for marriage and because they will be living in two different cities come September. Gwertzman will be working for Microsoft in Seattle, and Stewart will be pursuing a Ph.D. at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"There's no way we're going to stay together if we don't have the mind set that we are together," Gwertzman says. "This is a commitment to stay together, to grow together."

Gwertzman and Stewart first met while taking the same physics and math classes.

"I remember thinking, `She's a really smart woman. She's asking these really great questions,'" Gwertzman says. "I noticed her because she looks exactly like a friend from high school."

"He comes up to me in section and says, `Hi, I'm James, and you look just like a girl I knew in high school," Stewart recalls. "I'm thinking, `What an awful line. Get something new.'"

But the pair soon started studying together and had their first date on October 11. The relationship was casual for the two months until winter vacation, both say.

"Over Christmas break I realized that this relationship [wasn't] going anywhere," says Stewart. "I said, `I think I'm going to break up and just look around.'"

Gwertzman, though, felt differently about his relationship with Stewart.

"I was like, `Gosh, I really miss her. Maybethis is turning into love here,'" he says.

"I came back and said, `I think I really loveyou and I think we should date seriously,'" heremembers. "And she said, `I think we should breakup.'"

Gwertzman says he embarked on an intensive"wooing" effort and managed to win Stewart over byIntersession.

The situation was reversed though early thisspring, when Stewart, faced with the prospect ofliving 1,000 miles apart next year, decided thatthe time for a commitment had come.

"I swore to myself I would not become engagedas an undergraduate. I had heard too many horrorstories," Gwertzman says. "I was very wary."

But Stewart confronted him after a conversationtwo weeks before spring break with a friendengaged to be married in August.

"It wasn't exactly an ultimatum. But either we[were] going to make a commitment and startdeciding on things together or we [were] going todecide to go our separate ways," Stewart says. "Hemoved really quickly."

While Stewart was touring graduate schools overspring break, Gwertzman got up the nerve topropose.