Unfortunately it is that time of year that group projects become a thing again. I am sure that we all thought we left group projects behind the moment we were handed our high school diplomas—much to our dismay, we have not.
Professors claim to assign group projects to help us learn how to work with people to achieve a goal. I can see why that can be helpful, but, as I said above, I think we got that covered in high school. While it might make it easier on the professor, because instead of having to grade 30 projects they only have to grade 15, it is complete hell for college students. Here are four reasons why:
1) People have jobs. It could be easy to work with people if we were allowed time to work on the project in class but most of the time we are not. I once did a group project with a guy who was an EMT and a park ranger—needless to say; we did not have much face-to-face meeting time.
2) People do not pull their weight. Group projects are the dream for slackers because all they have to do is show up so they can claim they were involved with the process. Most of the hard work is done by mild overachievers like myself, adding unnecessary stress.
3) People can be control freaks. There is nothing worse than working with someone who thinks they know what is best for the project and will not allow anyone else to help. I did a project with a guy who trashed all of the information I sent him and put his own information into the presentation. If I had not printed out my information and orally presented it, it would have never seen the light of day.
4) People do not participate. Have you ever worked with someone who never comes to class, never replies to emails, and never helps with anything ever? So have I. The only thing worse than that is number three – I would rather you not try at all than try to control everything.
If you get stuck in a group project, all you can do is try not to be the person that everyone will talk about in a bad way when you are not there. Be involved and do your own research, form your own ideas, and pitch your own visions. Don’t allow yourself to just ride through the process and think that showing up is enough for everyone—it is a group project and you are meant to be a team.
Sure, group projects can be helpful. In a class such as marketing, where you will be working with a team of people in real life anyway, and group projects might be your favorite thing in the world. But the closer finals get to us, the more group projects get dropped over our heads by professors and I would just rather not deal with the extra, unnecessary stress.