Gábor Szikszay-farkas

"Diaries of a Maverick Professor'" Gábor Szikszay-farkas

After surviving the Communist takeover of his native Hungary and emigrating to the United States Gabor Szikszay-Farkas knew the kind of life he wanted for himself. A talented engineer and surveyor, with ample experience, he was determined to follow in the family tradition and teach at the University level, which would also allow him the time and flexibility to build and maintain an independent professional consulting business on the side. His first attempts of attaining his goals were thwarted, but when he was, unexpectedly, offered an assistant professorship in the Civil Engineering Department at a Technological Institute in the East, the opportunity to set down roots and realize his dreams presented itself. Moving from Ohio in a small caravan comprised of two cars, with his family Gabor arrived in the northern Massachusetts city of a Technological Institute just in time to begin the academic year. In his Diaries, the Maverick Professor recounts how, despite departmental infighting and an array of personal challenges, (including a large dose of discrimination) the author (and narrator) managed to secure a tenured position on the faculty, build a lucrative land surveying business in tandem with developers, raise a family and enjoy a few discrete dalliances with lady friends - all the while fighting to keep his eyesight threatened by disease. The Diaries of a Maverick Professor is a vigorous and candid memoir of a unique man with the verve and intelligence to live life on his own terms, written in a spontaneously energetic voice that is constantly engaging.