The doggedly torturous affair that was my recent bout of essay writing finally ended two days before Xmas. Its one thing that perplexes me about Equality Studies, and the students doing it. Last year the courses format for examining students was take home essays, where students had three days to write two 2,000 word pieces on their various topics, the idea was plausible, simply set two hours of your time aside and treat the thing like it were an on the spot exam in a hall, except with the privilege of having access to your notes and more. Not surprisingly, the class managed over the years to up the quality of the essays it was doing, so that what was being handed up equated in format and style the sort of academic essays people prepare over a month or more. So here we were this year with a different format, where all the essays were handed out and a three week deadline placed a head of us. Due to some mucking about with the course schedule this meant I had six to do. Usually doing essays can be a relatively enjoyable experience, being forced to research areas I traditionally wouldn't express an interest in, this was a much more tedious experience of drumming out an essay ever three days to keep up with the tedium of the deadline bearing down on me. Throw working into the mix, and fecking hell, it weren't the easiest thing to do in the world.

The essay topics were varied, stretching as they did across Critical legal theory, social policy and feminist theory. Some of the stuff I got to research will no doubt be of use for articles somewhere along the way, as is the case with the one about Copyright legislation, housing and how migrant workers are treated under Irish legislation. Apart from being an interesting theoretical excursion into feminism and some Marxism, I can't really see much of a use for the discussions of the Domestic mode of production, the rant about Cultural turn in feminism or that old chestnut for undergrad social policy types the future of the welfare state.

Labels: Academic