Based on that description of an essay, I don’t think you’ve been to college.
Writing an essay isn’t supposed to be a test of what the student has learned; it’s a test of what the student has found out.
Essay writing is (theoretically) an exercise in research. Maybe you’ll do primary research via the scientific method, conducting and reporting on experiments, but vastly more likely you’re supposed to find essays written by other researchers and cite their work, drawing conclusions based on their data.
Doing this properly requires critical thinking and logic skills…which they don’t bother to teach. Instead, they focus mainly on the clerical aspects of the assignment; focusing more on font selection and document formatting than the actual content of the ideas.
What is a take-home open-book test other than busywork? I’m a flight instructor, I teach people how to fly airplanes. I don’t care how much or how little time a student studies, they’ve got to show me they can fly the airplane before I send them to the examiner. College professors seem to approach their job as “How can I make this hard on my students?” I’ve always seen my job as “How can I make this easier for my students?” Because my job is to teach a skill, not gatekeep a decent living.
Woe is you, being asked to prove you learned anything, open book and at a time and place you decide on. Skill issue.
Based on that description of an essay, I don’t think you’ve been to college.
Writing an essay isn’t supposed to be a test of what the student has learned; it’s a test of what the student has found out.
Essay writing is (theoretically) an exercise in research. Maybe you’ll do primary research via the scientific method, conducting and reporting on experiments, but vastly more likely you’re supposed to find essays written by other researchers and cite their work, drawing conclusions based on their data.
Doing this properly requires critical thinking and logic skills…which they don’t bother to teach. Instead, they focus mainly on the clerical aspects of the assignment; focusing more on font selection and document formatting than the actual content of the ideas.
What is a take-home open-book test other than busywork? I’m a flight instructor, I teach people how to fly airplanes. I don’t care how much or how little time a student studies, they’ve got to show me they can fly the airplane before I send them to the examiner. College professors seem to approach their job as “How can I make this hard on my students?” I’ve always seen my job as “How can I make this easier for my students?” Because my job is to teach a skill, not gatekeep a decent living.