The end of the semester just wouldn’t be the same without a couple more exciting group projects (she says sarcastically). How professors expect us to be able to juggle all of the coordinating and collaborating that comes along with these assignments on top of preparing for finals is beyond me. Here are the emotional stages we all experience when assigned the universally hated “group project.”
Stage 1: Dread
Your professor announces that there’s just one task left before the final: a group project. They might as well have just said there are 10 huge obstacles standing between you and your winter break.
Stage 2: Hopefulness
Realizing that there is no way out of the assignment, you decide to be optimistic. Maybe you’ll be put into a group with the guy you’ve been staring at from across the room all semester. In fact, this could be fate! You can clearly imagine telling the story of how you and “cute blue eyed guy” met to your children someday.
Stage 3: Disappointment
The whole future you built for yourself during the past 10 seconds comes crashing down as you get assigned to a group with no one you know.
Stage 4: Being Uncomfortable
You go through the awkward process of introductions and exchanging contact information with the strangers who are now your groupmates. Group projects are one of the few situations in life when handing over your phone number and email address to people within seconds of meeting them is considered normal.
Stage 5: Getting Overwhelmed A couple days later, you all try to figure out a time to meet in the group chat. Finding a time that fits all of your schedules becomes one giant math problem that’s at least twice as complicated as the project itself.
Stage 6: Bonding
You finally find a time over the weekend to meet at the library. What was supposed to be a productive study session turns into a never ending conversation about how awful the class and professor are. You wonder where this emotional support group was these past few months.
Stage 7: Annoyance
You come up with what you think is a pretty good idea for the project and pitch it to the group. One of your group members nods enthusiastically, saying: “Yeah! And instead of *insert what you had said,* we could do, *insert something that has nothing to do with what you suggested*.”
Stage 8: Feeling Stupid
In the spirit of throwing out ideas, someone else in the group makes a suggestion that requires a much deeper understanding of the course content than any of you currently possess.
Stage 9: Success
You all finally agree on an idea and divide up the tasks. Now that you have a set plan about how to survive the project, you begin to feel more relaxed.
Stage 10: Productivity
A few days have gone by and nobody has edited the shared Google doc yet. You decide to get your part done so you can just forget about the whole thing.
Stage 11: Pride
You aren’t entirely sure you did any of it right, but at least the effort was clearly there.
Stage 12: Nervousness
Unfortunately, you remember that this is a group project and you are all getting the same grade. Therefore, forgetting about the project isn’t really possible. You start to get kind of anxious since the project is due in a handful of days and nobody else has done anything.
Stage 13: Confusion
It’s the day before the project is due and one of your group members still has yet to make any contribution. Do the people who never do anything on group projects actually find joy in stressing others out and mooching off of their work?
Stage 14: Betrayal
Even though things weren’t looking promising, your basic faith in humanity led you to maintain a certain level of confidence that everyone would eventually do their part. Now you can see that is not going to happen.
Stage 15: Anger
You realize you are the only one who cares enough about your grade to take on extra work so you end up staying up to do the invisible group member’s part. By 2:00 a.m, you’re feeling a combination of exhaustion and anger towards the world.
Stage 16: Frustration
While you are working, you notice about twelve ridiculous grammar mistakes throughout the PowerPoint. You pause briefly to consider whether it would be rude to sweep through and edit everyone else’s work. You do it anyway.
Stage 17: Exhaustion
The day of the presentation finally arrives. Your grand total of two hours of sleep caused you to hit the snooze button one too many times and almost miss presenting the project. After sprinting to class in the freezing cold, you feel like you’re having an asthma attack, but at least you’re sitting at your desk with your bed head and circles under your eyes a whole minute before attendance is taken.
Stage 18: Feeling Intimidated
You watch a few groups present and can’t ignore the fact that their PowerPoints are much more elaborate and impressive than yours is.
Stage 19: No Longer Caring
Your group is finally called on and it dawns on you that you never really planned out the presentation component of the project. Who is going to introduce the group? Are you all just reading from your own slides? What about the group member who was MIA for the past two weeks and is now miraculously present? You decide to just wing it, finding comfort in the fact that in 15 minutes this will all be over.
Stage 20: Freedom
Finally the group project is done and you are free (to focus on finals) again!