My name is Teal Murley and I am a white female from Hancock, Michigan.   Yup, I am a Yooper.   While my parents are both from suburbs of Detroit, I was born and raised here and haven't moved away for more than three months at a time.   I love the area and when deciding where to go to college during my senior year of high school, I decided upon Michigan Tech not because I wanted to be an engineer, but because I wanted to just start my general classes and eventually transfer to another school to finish my undergraduate work.   Well, here I am six years later, starting my graduate work, where else, but at MTU.  

When I was asked to write this narrative, I was surprised to hear that I was underrepresented.   Being shocked by this, I started to think about why, exactly, I was ignorant to this fact.   First of all, I am a graduate of the School of Business and Economics, Education Department, and Humanities so being in these specific departments I feel that there are more females in contrast to the 3:1 ratio throughout the rest of campus.    Another reason I think that I was unaware of this situation is because I never focused on it.   Instead, I allowed myself to enjoy as many aspects of my college life as I could.

I decided that if I was going to stay at MTU, I was going to get as much out of it as I possibly could; both inside and outside the classroom.   So, my friend Brooke, who had been one of my best friends in high school, and I signed up to live in the dorms our freshman year.  

Right away, Brooke and I dove into the college life.   The girls in our hall were awesome and we all started to hang out together on a regular basis and we eventually gained the titles "The East McNair Girls" and "Miss East McNair." I started to investigate different groups throughout campus including sororities, professional fraternities, learning centers, intramural sports, summer sports and others to try to see what else this ever-familiar campus could offer me.

My little sister, Kit was still at home at the time so it meant a lot to me to spend time with her and my parents.   I started off the year going home weekly, but as time went on, the amount of time I spent at home decreased (even though I loved being there) and the time I spent with friends on campus increased. There was always some study group, pizza party, hair-dying party (don't be surprised, it happens all the time), fraternity party or something that was keeping me from heading across the bridge to Hancock.