Falling in Love Online: Grad School Edition
This article is for subscribers only.
He tells people they met online. She says they met in graduate school. They’re both right.
Raffaele Giarnella and Jessica Perry first noticed each other on a video chat platform they had each paid about $100,000 to access. They were in accounting class, earning their first credits toward an MBA the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School delivered entirely online. Perry lived in Orange County, Calif., and Giarnella in Durham, N.C., but they noticed each other immediately and eventually pursued a long-distance relationship. “By the time the second class came around, I was absolutely smitten,” Giarnella says.