There’s this wonderful thing in college classes (mostly straight English or literature) that is known as the take-home exam. Alas, this phenomenon, while wonderful, is such a rare, delicate occurrence, the likes of it are only seen by discerning students in certain classes.
This semester I happened to be one of them.
I’m taking the first in three-course sequence of critical theory English classes offered at my college. I jumped at the opportunity to take this class, but, at my current rate, I won’t be taking any more. Reading theory is not like reading Dante or Bronte, Austen, or Shakespeare. Reading theory is like reading people who seem to have no freaking idea what they are saying but somehow their work has become famous anyways. I’ve read about people who believe women are castrated and therefore “lack”, about panopticism, and about a man who claims that the Twin Towers committed suicide on 9/11.
For the most part, I don’t believe or accept a word of it and apparently I also can’t understand or explain any of it either.
However, there is one good thing about the class.
The largest exam, even larger than the final, is take-home, which means we can look over it from the comfort of our rooms, in our pj’s, with all our notes sprawled out around us. There’s a due date and time for it as if it was a regular assignment and, going over it, it feels like a regular assignment. Just with a whole crapload of points attached to it.
On behalf of all the students out there who have intense test stress, I’d like to thank whatever infinitely merciful professor thought up the take-home exam. Grades are higher because of it.
-Everygirl
