Fueled by a desire to become a teacher, Loren Mayshark entered Hunter College in 2008, with the intention of gaining a master's degree in two years. Six years and tens of thousands of dollars later, he abandoned his studies without attaining the deg...
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After my meeting with Professor Caraja I resolved to work harder through the semester so that I could finish the bulk of my coursework and be able to begin the booklist. I would have to digest the list as best I could and then regurgitate it in my comprehensive exam. I vowed to start reading furiously as soon as I received the list. Every class inundated one with as much material as a human being could possibly force inside. The three classes I was taking required the reading of at least fifteen books—around five thousand pages of dense material in each class—and all of them included writing assignments, which included at least twenty pages of carefully thought out term papers per class. Studying and keeping up with the administrative minutiae, combined with my bookselling and commute, made it nearly impossible to work and sleep—once again I became an insomniac.
On December 14, 2010 I received the booklist for Professor Caraja's custom exam. The list was a daunting thirty-six books that was comprised mostly of dry academic monographs. By that time I was wrapping up my final papers of the semester, which devoured every free moment. The day after the semester ended I began on the booklist. I read day and night, only taking breaks for utter necessities. I was operating on an academic level that I never could have conceived of before grad school. I was also exhausted and frequently depressed.
As part of my preparation I had a series of meetings with Professor Caraja, the first of which was on January 5, 2011. I had subsequent meetings on February 1, February 14, and February 23. Each meeting lasted about an hour. In the meetings he was stern and serious, constantly challenging me to do more. I was very appreciative that he took the time to work with me, as I saw our arrangement as the last possible avenue to gain the degree that I had worked so hard for. I tried to convey my appreciation to him in person and through email; he would reply that he was simply doing his job. On several occasions he asked me if I felt comfortable taking the test in February and I told him that I wanted the experience of taking the exam to make me stronger and to push me, even if I did end up failing. Rosencrass and Caraja said that they respected my initiative and they would allow me to take the test, but they were skeptical that any human being could read thirty-six books in roughly two and a half months. I was unfazed. The next test would not be offered again until September 2011, and as I saw it I was gaining valuable experience by taking the test in February. By creating the deadline I was disciplining myself to expend my maximum effort to finish the booklist. If I were to pass the test on the first try, great—then I could turn all of my attention to the thesis that I was so passionate about. Otherwise, I figured that the failed exam would make me much more prepared for the test in September.
I was in the process of moving out of Connecticut and back home to western New York State for financial reasons. This meant that I would have to commute four hundred miles for our meetings and the subsequent exam. I changed the setting of my thesis on Latino labor from the east end of Long Island to western New York, which Professor Caraja said would work fine if he were to take it on.
Over the course of our meetings I felt that I had built a mild rapport with Professor Caraja. Although he was always perfunctory, it seemed that his demeanor toward me was slowly softening. In the second-to-last meeting before the test he told me that he would take on my thesis as long as I understood that he would be on sabbatical in the fall of 2011 and could offer me no help from May 21, 2011 until the first draft of my thesis was due at the beginning of spring semester 2012. I was elated by the news and thanked him profusely, but almost immediately after leaving his office I refocused my efforts on the test.
