Group Projects

You want to know what truly sucks? Being the person who gives too much and receives very little in return. I could go on and on about how annoying it is about being the person that everyone takes advantage of, but isn’t that normal for group projects? Let’s talk about how irritating it is to be placed in a group project itself. The concept of working together toward a common goal may seem like an easy task, but the reality of it is so daunting and tedious it makes my head explode. What especially sucks are group projects in which you have no say in picking YOUR OWN partner(s), instead they are picked for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very amicable person. I’m easy to get along with, but being a friendly person and being a very goal-driven person is another thing. If you’re as especially dedicated to receiving a good grade for the project, that’s another important objective in group projects. In cases of group projects I prefer to be strict in the beginning when it comes to addressing the assignment and roles of everyone in the group, then become more friendly toward the completion of group work. But even a few days into the process of the group project, there is ALWAYS that one person with their excuse as to why they couldn’t get something done on time! Or there is always someone who never shows up the group meetings! What’s even worse than that one person that always bails out on ANY form of responsibility for the project whatsoever, is being the person with ALL the responsibility in the group! You heard me right, being the person who gets a majority of the workload because their partners just want to mooch off of you and procrastinate has probably got to be amongst the top five things I hate about school since about the third grade. To be riddled with the task of completing the group’s work because the rest of your group members are lazy or incompetent WHILE juggling other academic work is beyond stressful. In this situation if things don’t change, that is when you must get the professor involved in order to make sure your group functions efficiently or to be placed in a new one. That being said, being the pack mule of the group sucks all in all. Another thing that is truly draining of group projects is doing everything… LAST MINUTE! The scramble to submit the group work last minute never fails to raise my anxiety levels, especially if my group partners are USELESS! Even though I, myself, hand in my own individual assignments in last minute (occasionally). I prefer to get group projects out of the way as soon as possible so that I can continue on doing my own work and tend to my own matters. It’s especially terrible when everyone has yet to gather all their necessary components for the project that needs to be presented, or they don’t have their segment of the project down packed. You can imagine my utter annoyance when my group is presenting to the class and still reading off the slideshow we made last night, reading everything like its brand new information. If you thought that was bad, imagine the look on my face when the professor/instructor asks them a question pertaining to their portion of the assignment and not being able to answer it properly. In conclusion, I hate group projects. As necessary as they are for grades and certain classes, I would prefer not to do them at all. It’s just too stressful and dealing with people who aren’t as serious about their grades as you are is not fun.