When Morine Duntley isn't busy going to her Biology classes, studying hard, visiting tutors, and singing in an a capella group at UNH Manchester, she is equally busy with her other job: full time mom to three kids under 6.
Juggling her studies and motherhood is no easy feat, Duntley says, but the 29-year-old says, it's worth it.
"I guess I'm just one of those people who make up their minds about something I'm going to achieve it whether good or bad," Duntley, of Concord, says. "The reason it's important to me. When I graduated high school, I passed, but my parents couldn't afford to send me to college. And that's something I've always wanted."
Duntley grew up in Nairobi, Kenya on the East side of Africa. She went to a boarding school as a child, where she says, one learned to be independent, "whether you wanted to be or not."
After graduation, with college not in the cards for her, she traveled to Germany as an au pair. She started applying for schools but found the process difficult. Though she was fluent in Swahili, English and even the dialect of her part of Nairobi, she didn't know German.
Then she met the man who would later become her husband. The two decided they wanted to start a family right away, which while very much a decision she wanted to make, did push her schooling off for a few more years.
The couple eventually moved to New Hampshire and added three kids-including a set of twins- to their young family. But pretty soon, Duntley started looking at schools again, settling on Manchester Community College as a place to get some prerequisites out of the way. She says while she was there, her classmates kept telling her to look into UNH Manchester. After doing more research, she decided they were right and applied to the Biology program.
"It's not a big university. I don't do well in that environment," she says. "I like to have two or three or four people really know me. You have a small community, and it's wonderful. Everybody is out there to help each other. And you know you have the one-on-one with the professors. You know it's not like you are in a room with hundreds of students and no one even knows you."
Which she says, was a particular bonus. She says one of the major differences between her studies and MCC is how fast paced the classes are.
"It's fast teaching and I had to get used to that," she says. "But, that's why it's the best place for me to go because you can talk to the professors and the college offers tutoring which is free. Come on, it doesn't get any better than that! Let's say I have a question I can't ask right away, they have tutoring and they are available anytime. So that's the best part of it."
The subject matter is challenging too, but Duntley says she's not complaining, knowing that rigor will ultimately prepare her for the Pharmacology program she's hoping to get into next year.
"It's really hard," she says. "But if you put the time into it, it's not bad."
That said, Duntley has found time for extracurricular activities including working as a Swahili speaking Medical Interpreter at a language bank and a member of the UNH Manchester a capella group Milling Around.
"From a very young age I used to sing in the choir. But the older I got I didn't have time for music," she says.
Duntley says a fellow classmate convinced her to try out for the singing group.
"The community itself, the group itself, is very uplifting," she says."For me I find music stress relieving. We did a concert in the fall, that was the best time of my life I think. Just singing in front of the crowd and singing your heart out with people that you like to be around, that is fun."
"[Milling Around] was like a way to be invited into the college. You get to meet different people," says Duntley. "I've only been there for a year now, and I feel like I've been there for like years."
