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The deeper point is an exam is a very poor proxy for actual learning to start with. The fact is profs by and large don’t give a shit about teaching quality, let alone learning, and most want to toss up an exam on the learning platform, get grades submitted before the deadline, and move on.

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A lot of professors would prefer to skip exams that become a part of your grade. However, we (I teach at a college) are REQUIRED to at least give a final exam and are REQUIRED to have that as a part of their grade. sigh

I'd much rather teach and talk and enjoy with my students, but, alas, the design of most universities box us in at different levels (and let's not even get started on the "must publish research" side of teaching).

Just my $0.02.

I used to teach myself, but thank god I didn’t have that level of meddling.

> The deeper point is an exam is a very poor proxy for actual learning to start with.

It's far from perfect, but it's better than the alternatives, and various organizations and people and powers-that-be reasonably want some kind of measure of whether someone actually learned something in a class/degree.

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