[doug_durham]

Hand written essays are inherently ableist. I would be at a massive disadvantage. I grew up during the 60's, but handwriting was alway slow and error prone for me. As soon as I could use a word processor I blossomed.

It's probably not as bad for mathematical derivations. I still do those by hand since they are more like drawing than expression.

[AllegedAlec]

> Hand written essays are inherently ableist

So is testing; people who don't have the skills don't do well. Hell, the entire concept of education is ableist towards learning impaired kids. Let's do away with it entirely.

[lionkor]

Would you hire someone as a writer who is completely illiterate? Of course that's an extreme edge case, but at some point equality stops and the ability to do the work is actually important.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Most people would be happy to hire a writer with no consideration of how good their handwriting was.

[wrp]

I was a slow handwriter, too. I always did badly on in-class essay exams because I didn't have time to write all that I knew needed to be said. What saved my grade in those classes was good term papers.

Having had much occasion to consider this issue, I would suggest moving away from the essay format. Most of the typical essay is fluff that serves to provide narrative cohesion. If knowledge of facts and manipulation of principles are what is being evaluated, presentation by bullet points should be sufficient.

[ecb_penguin]

> Hand written essays are inherently ableist

Doing anything is inherently based on your ability to do it. Running is inherently ableist. Swimming is ableist. Typing is inherently ableist.

Pointing this out is just a thought terminating cliche. Ok, it's ableist. So?

> As soon as I could use a word processor I blossomed.

You understand this is inherently ableist to people that can't type?

> I still do those by hand since they are more like drawing than expression.

Way to do ableist math.

[baq]

> Hand written essays are inherently ableist.

yes.

> I would be at a massive disadvantage.

yes.

...but.

how would you propose to filter out able cheaters instead? there's also in person one on one verbal exam, but economics and logistics of that are insanely unfavorable (see also - job interviews.)

[jedimastert]

Handwriting essays doesn't filter out cheaters though? It didn't even filter out cheaters before ChatGPT, before it was just a person writing the essay for you that you would copy