When I did tertiary studies in programming there wasn't AI but we did our programming exams in pencil and paper. The "beneficial" prep we had and I had since high school was using punch cards. And 24h turnaround time for compiles. That really makes you think. And you learn how to desk check even thousand line programs. Intense focus, structuring for readability (to catch typos) and simplicity (catch logic errors) helped enormously. Was not unusual to change hundred lines of code and submit knowing that it wouldn't compile but will throw up the other errors I couldn't find. Our exams would give us 4-6 attempts for clean compile AND correct output. The only space where I experience same challenge now (40+ yrs later) is embedded code. Desktops and web stuff have LSPs and dynamic reloads and interpreted code (not a thing for me when learning) with instant feedback.

Lots of skills from those old days that have been lost/ignored in the pretence of productivity.

I personally dislike placing a heavy emphasis on exams. Assignments/projects have been consistently the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of the courses I've taken so far in university.

It's a shame that they are also way more susceptible to cheating with AI.

Yeah exactly, I remember having to write Java and C++ by hand in college in the early 2000s. It was also a good test how well you knew the syntax.

Bonus point: even if you use AI to prepare the submission, copying it down by hand will at least force you to _read_ it.

Today just teachers walking around during an exam instead of browsing on their phone would do wonders…

Writing programs by hand is something I had to do too. Compete waste of time

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