"what did students do before chatgpt?" well one time i forgot i had a history essay due at my 10am class the morning of so over the course of my 30 minute bus ride to school i awkwardly used by backpack as a desk, sped wrote the essay, and got an A on it.
six months later i re-read the essay prior to the final exam, went 'ohhhh yeah i remember this', got a question on that topic, and aced it.
point being that actually doing the work is how you learn the material and internalize it. ChatGPT can give you a short cut but it won't build you the the muscles.
I think of an art teacher I had once who said he used to be terrible at drawing hands until he bought a book with 100 pictures of hands shown from various angles and drew each hand in the book 10 times. Magically, after drawing 1,000 pictures of hands, he wasn't bad at drawing hands anymore.
The reason OP could bullshit a decent essay in a 30 minute bus ride is because OP knew how to write and craft a well-reasoned analysis thanks to a childhood full of writing and critical thinking practice.
Feel like I'm transforming into one of those reddit assholes, but this genuinely is just a "skill issue" and you really do just have to "git gud."
I forgot about an essay in Uni, once. Realised at 10pm the night before the deadline and worked till dawn to hand it in. It was the best essay Iāve ever written, got a distinction (over 80 marks I think) and I still remember the content, my hypothesis and my arguments.
This was 10 years ago.
Our brains are meant to be used.
