I feel this way towards all my assignments. As per Karl Marx "Since human labor is mediated by a system of ownership in which the worker is forced to sell their labor to the capitalist in exchange for a wage, they no longer have control over their labor as they once did()As a example, since a student is mediated by a school system of requirements in which the student is forced to complete certain classes and maintain a standard GPA in exchanged for a degree, I do not have control in what classes I would rather take or what books I would prefer to read for those classes. Marx also noted "As a result of the fact the product enters into a system of exchange, the product creates no use value for the worker''(). As a student, there is no use of value for the assignments I am completing because I do not need to write these assignments to sustain my life. Nor must I do these assignments for a source of human existence in that it produces material necessities of food, shelter and clothing without which I could not survive and would not exist. In addition to this, Marx thought that product alienation breaks the connection workers from in identifying with the product they produce. As exchange becomes the dominant social relation, however, product alienation becomes greatest when the worker cannot use the product they produce. In my case as a college student, a student cannot use all the papers we write about or books we read, therefore, we become alienated from our product we "produce".
The second form of alienation discussed by Marx is alienation from productive activity. In this type of alienation humans beings lose control over the capacity of their laboring activity to affirm their being and define their self- existence.(123) What this means is that an individual breaks the connection the individual has to the self-affirming and self defining aspects of their labor.