Nobody plans to take a graduate school compre exam in a foreign country. Or at least, nobody plans it on purpose.
Here is how it happened: I booked my Malaysia trip months in advance. Flights, hotels, train tickets, the whole thing. Then my university scheduled the Comprehensive Exam right in the middle of it. Two choices. Take it in my apartment in Vietnam or take it in Penang, Malaysia.
Penang sounded more exciting. So Penang it was.
The Setup
For context, the Comprehensive Exam is THE big one, before thesis writing. For my MA in Literature, it is the examination that tests everything you have learned across the entire program. All of it. In one sitting. Across two days.
I had not been actively studying for two years. Life happened, travel happened, Vietnam happened. I resumed in 2025 and the exam came faster than I expected.
So I did what any reasonable person in my situation would do. I studied for two straight days at Cara Caro Cafe in Georgetown, Penang, ordered too many drinks, and hoped for the best.
The Cafe Study Sessions
Cara Caro Cafe became my unofficial study headquarters. Earthy tones, lush plants, good drinks, and just enough ambient noise to keep me from spiraling into full panic mode. I set up camp there for two days straight before the exam, notes spread across the table, coffee in hand, frantically piecing together two years’ worth of literary theory and criticism from memory.
It is not the most conventional exam prep environment. But honestly, it worked. There is something about being in a beautiful space that makes even the most daunting task feel slightly more manageable.
The Exam Room
The exam itself was online, two full days. A whole day on Friday and a half day on Saturday. My exam room was my hotel room at Grand FC Hotel, a compact space with a desk by the window. The window looked out onto a wall and the upper half of a building next door. Not exactly inspiring scenery but the desk was solid and the wifi held up and that was all I needed.
I want to say I was calm and collected going in. I was not. I was anxious in the particular way that only happens when you genuinely do not know what topics are coming and you have two years of gaps in your memory to account for. I racked my brain for every essay, every theory, every author I had studied. The exam was intense. My hands were typing before my brain fully caught up.
The Bathroom Door Incident
Here is something I will tell you now because it is funny in retrospect and slightly horrifying in the moment.
At some point during the exam, I realized my bathroom door had been open the whole time. Not a little open. Wide open. For approximately two whole subjects, I was answering graduate-level literary criticism questions with an open toilet visible in the background of my camera feed. I was mortified, thankfully there was no stuff hanging in there (if you know what I mean lol).
I noticed. I got a little embarrassed. I closed it. I kept going.
What It Actually Felt Like
There is something strange and oddly poetic about answering questions on literary theory in an unfamiliar room in a country you are visiting for the first time. The exam required two cameras, one front-facing and one pointed at my back view, to prevent cheating. So there I was, monitored from two angles, in a small hotel room in Penang, trying to remember everything I had ever learned about literature while outside the window, Georgetown was just going about its day.
It was one of the more surreal experiences of my life. The kind that you do not fully process until it is over.
Spoiler Alert
I passed! 🥹
Two years of pause, two days of intense cramming at a bohemian cafe in Malaysia, two days of exam with an accidental open toilet in the background and all.
I passed.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where life and travel and graduate school overlap in ways you did not plan for, take the exam in a more exciting location. Study at the cafe with the good drinks. Close your bathroom door. Trust yourself.
You might just pass too.
