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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I received the letter and response in Italy and was unsure what to do next. For years, as I was working multiple jobs and working on my personal writing in addition to my degree, many people told me, "Just work a little harder and you'll get over the hump." As a result, I was constantly telling myself that if I just pushed a little harder, got up earlier, put in more hours, and hired the right editor to coach me through my thesis I would be able to finish the degree and move on with my life. But as the finish line kept being pulled away from me I began to get more and more burned out. By the end of my second thesis I had gotten to the point that I could not concentrate on my thesis for more than fifteen minutes at a time.
As my work was constantly being ripped apart and because I was forced to live the experience nearly every moment of every day, this, combined with other problems I was having outside of academia, was making me feel worthless. My entire life was meeting deadlines, working, jumping through hoops, and doing everything within my power to focus and produce. Looking back on it, for the last few years I was pursuing the degree my lifestyle was unsustainable and it was sapping my energy and causing my mental and physical health to deteriorate. I could not understand this when I was mired in the situation. The letter was simply a gravestone on my time at Hunter. I was officially done.
I was routinely stretched to breaking point. My mother (a licensed mental health therapist) told me that Hunter College began to trigger symptoms of PTSD in me. Education was not at the heart of my experience at Hunter College. My situation there was horrible enough for me to give up my dream of teaching at the college level, and it has transformed me into someone totally different than I was when I entered. I wish, if nothing else, that no other student will have to endure what I did at Hunter.
When I visited NYC on my way to Italy after my decision to leave Hunter College, I decided to take the 4 train to Lehman one last time to thank and say good-bye to Professor Rodriguez. He was his usual kind self and he spoke to me freely about my difficult decision. I thought about his last words all the way back to my hotel room. He had told me that anyone who spoke with me for a few minutes could see that I was passionate about learning and that he was ashamed because "we have failed you."
Although my experience at Hunter is extreme, it is not without precedent. Hunter does many things poorly, and unfortunately I don't believe that the institution is an outlier. I have tried to do my part to shed light on the situation in the hopes of helping other students who are caught in a similar vortex.
I have come to see the academic world differently than when I first enrolled in grad school. The conversations I have had with students and professors, combined with my experience, have shown me the darker side of higher education. The trend of corporatization tends to undermine the voice of students and some members of the faculty by placing an inordinate amount of power in the hands of administrators. As a result, higher education in this nation is, in some cases, run like a business. But it should not be operated in this fashion, because an education is more than a transaction.
At Hunter the administration created a culture so insular that it prohibits healthy scrutiny and, in my case, recourse. I would have benefitted from an external review by an objective party. In the future, students should be encouraged to come forward and contribute to a dialogue about ways to reform a system that disconnects professionals and students. There must be more oversight, not only of the professors, but of the bureaucrats who are supposed to be watching them. The students and adjunct professors should have more say in the direction of education. While there are many professors who take an interest in the development of their students, many others could benefit from approaching their jobs with a deeper level of humanity. Collusion between departments and administrations should be routinely inspected. I hope this account contributes in a small way to a broader dialogue, which is long overdue.
