The "point" of writing an essay appears to me to have been one of those proof-of-work challenges that are relatively easy to assign and grade, but very time con

The "point" of writing an essay appears to me to have been one of those proof-of-work challenges that are relatively easy to assign and grade, but very time consuming to write; I can't recall any cases when the student actually had anything original to say, which the lecturer was really interested in discussing. So seeing that essays aren't a good proof of work anymore, lecturers would need to come up with a better one. Or, heaven forbid, allow students to actually do something productive with their time.