So, I'm in my second year of college right now and I'm what you call a non-traditional student as I can only take one or two classes once a week meetings or online only. Right now I'm taking World Literature and US History. When I went to the literature class the teacher passed out a questionnaire asking if we would prefer to work in a group or solo for our final project. Me having a constantly changing schedule I opted for working alone and at the next meeting she gave all the students who chose that option shit about it saying that we were being anti-social and not team building. If you didn't want us to work alone why was it an option? Besides it's my own damn business if I want to work alone. Anyway have you, Escapists, been irritated by professors insisting that you work in a group when you'd rather do it yourself or do you hate working alone?
Group Projects
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Before my sophomore of high school I didn't mind group work if we all put forward the same amount of effort, I get pissed as soon as someone starts slacking. After I went from an A to a C in my Geometry class because the group member in charge of writing the paper plagiarized the entire thing causing us to fail, I started to hate group work. Now I much rather work on my own because the only person I can blame for failure is myself.
I'm actually pretty pissed right now because I learned my seminar class this year has mandatory study groups for my Western Civ class. Which is the only class I would not need a study group for because I excel at history.
I'm actually pretty pissed right now because I learned my seminar class this year has mandatory study groups for my Western Civ class. Which is the only class I would not need a study group for because I excel at history.
Every time I have a group project I always wait to be the last person chosen and say I have a strong objection to working with others. I strongly dislike the idea of group work in college for the simple fact that someone is not obligated to be there, and have no real repercussions for slacking or not even showing up at all since you're going to be turning the project in anyway.
The one thing I dislike more than anything though is when groups are assigned at the beginning of the semester. Reason being is you can't always count on people being there. When you're in your early 20s and are trying to make a life for yourself, have a job (most likely), family that may require time and attention, a home and car to care for, and possibly relationships, school quickly loses its priority on peoples' lists. As such, people start dropping out of your group, and the people who you thought could you could rely on to be there to help with the project end up leaving, and the only remaining are people who have no motivation to do anything and come to class and group meetings to fill their time between parties and facebook jags.
The one thing I dislike more than anything though is when groups are assigned at the beginning of the semester. Reason being is you can't always count on people being there. When you're in your early 20s and are trying to make a life for yourself, have a job (most likely), family that may require time and attention, a home and car to care for, and possibly relationships, school quickly loses its priority on peoples' lists. As such, people start dropping out of your group, and the people who you thought could you could rely on to be there to help with the project end up leaving, and the only remaining are people who have no motivation to do anything and come to class and group meetings to fill their time between parties and facebook jags.
Yes, it is anti-social to not shackle your academic performance to someone else you barely know (if you know them at all).
I've always had nothing but contempt for group projects. I don't think I've ever done one where I didn't do at least 75% of the work. In High School, it got to the point where I always grouped up with my cousin because at least I knew he wouldn't be doing a damn thing a head of time and could plan accordingly. Everyone else swore up and down they where doing their part until the last week, upon which I had to cram and make up the difference.
Utter shit.
I've always had nothing but contempt for group projects. I don't think I've ever done one where I didn't do at least 75% of the work. In High School, it got to the point where I always grouped up with my cousin because at least I knew he wouldn't be doing a damn thing a head of time and could plan accordingly. Everyone else swore up and down they where doing their part until the last week, upon which I had to cram and make up the difference.
Utter shit.
I hated mandatory group work in college. I was an art student and I can think of exactly two projects that didn't suck. The first one didn't suck because I got permission from my professor to work with a couple of my non-art major friends. The second one that worked was a collaboration with one of the few people in the department that I got along with. Every other group project was an unequivocal failure. The worst being one where I, due to our group being so incompetent, ended up being in a group with two girls I'd never met or worked with before the class, their boyfriends, the TA (who was also one of my partners close friends) and the classes professor. Even with that many cooks in the kitchen (he says sarcastically) the project surprisingly sucked and failed.
I'm a 3rd year Comp Sci student and all of my projects so far have been group work. I've had some shit experiences -including a nightmare of a 5 person project where only myself and one other guy did anything- and some pretty awesome ones -an android app where we scored second highest. It's fine in groups of 3-4 because my regulars tend to be two guys who I will admit are better than me at programing and one guy who is a lazy asshole. We've come to an agreement that I do most to all of the documentation and Software Engineering while they do the bulk of the code. The problems I find are 2 people groups. They are either a complete train wreck or a resounding success depending on how the group splits.
Like it or not, mandatory group project extend beyond the classroom. The vast majority of jobs require you to work in groups at least some of the time. So it makes sense for a university, which is supposed to be preparing you for your chosen career path, would require you to engage in group work whether you like it or not. Sorry, but if that's inconvenient, perhaps college isn't for you.
(as a side note, I find college is not for a lot of people, despite the increasing societal pressures to get a college degree....so unless it's a good fit for you, you might want to give something else a try)
(as a side note, I find college is not for a lot of people, despite the increasing societal pressures to get a college degree....so unless it's a good fit for you, you might want to give something else a try)
I never got group projects...people can leech off other people's hard work, or cause other people to fail because of their own carelessness. It really doesn't make sense in a culture and education system based primarily on individual merit.
And I hate being the cause of other people's failure...I don't want to drag anybody down with my own incompetence. Just keep it simple, I say, work as individuals so you always know exactly who to blame or praise.
...unless they cheated.
And I hate being the cause of other people's failure...I don't want to drag anybody down with my own incompetence. Just keep it simple, I say, work as individuals so you always know exactly who to blame or praise.
...unless they cheated.
This is true.Avaholic03 said:
Sometimes IRL you are going to be stuck carrying people. luckily, in college you can complain to the prof about lazy group members and hopefully get their grade dropped without suffering yourself.
In *theory* I have nothing against group projects as long as a) everyone puts in an honest effort and at least *tries* to contribute and b) everyone can get on the same page/wavelength about what you are trying to accomplish and how to best accomplish your goal. The problem is that in my experience (in both school and work) that *never* happens. And oftentimes under-achievers finangle their way in to groups with smart, motivated people simply so that they can ride on the efforts & accomplishments of others without doing anything themselves.
In one case in school I was part of a five person project and two of the members *literally* didn't answer e-mails, didn't answer phone calls, rushed out of class before the rest of us could talk to them and did *nothing* on the project/presentation. But they shared the top score that the other three of us worked hard for.
No, I'm not bitter at all.
In one case in school I was part of a five person project and two of the members *literally* didn't answer e-mails, didn't answer phone calls, rushed out of class before the rest of us could talk to them and did *nothing* on the project/presentation. But they shared the top score that the other three of us worked hard for.
No, I'm not bitter at all.
I didn't mind so much. Generally, I had no problem fucking up my own grades by not doing nonsense like homework(seriously, I know the subject, I don't need to answer your fucking worksheet to show you, I'll show you on the goddamn test). However, I would not fuck up other people's grades because that would make me a selfish sack of shit. Even if I ended up being the only one who actually worked on the project, I didn't really care because it generally took virtually no effort to actually put it together. It was more a test of social skills and willingness to put up with bullshit than any actual test of your abilities. I could put out work good enough on my own. I didn't need the other people but as motivation. Although I did need at least one person to care about the grade. If no one gave a shit, I'd have likely not as well. Never ran into that situation though.
On a side note, can the captchas stop trying to sell me a car?
On a side note, can the captchas stop trying to sell me a car?
Actually I prefer group projects in the "real world" because if someone fails they usually get the axe as an individual.Superlative said:
Unless the person who was slacking is the person who writes the report... but when that report is disputed by the entire team the axe is only delayed to come down even harder.
Last semester I had a great group project experience, besides one person not fulfilling their full responsibilities because of health issues, it turned out great. A solid 98% and we were quite happy. Everyone did their responsibilities, I was made the leader because I came up with the theme of the project, I never thought I could actually lead a group in a half decent manner, but I did.
Sorry for getting off topic, but as much as I dislike group projects for the potential problems, if it works out well enough, everything runs smooth and efficiently. It's true that most occupations for better or worse require cooperation and group effort, but at least when a paycheck is involved, people naturally become better workers.
Sorry for getting off topic, but as much as I dislike group projects for the potential problems, if it works out well enough, everything runs smooth and efficiently. It's true that most occupations for better or worse require cooperation and group effort, but at least when a paycheck is involved, people naturally become better workers.
I hated them with a passion in high school, and the first group project I had as an art major in college lumped me a girl who left me hanging on that Sunday we were allowed on-campus to put up the project and left me with nothing but my design that we not only agreed on, but got a glowing approval from our professor because it was interesting. I went to school the next day when the projects were due, fully expecting to just take an F, to find she came in really late night/early morning and did her own thing. We didn't fail because at least there was something to present, but our professor immediately noticed the design was different and fell quite flat in comparison to what I showed him and she thankfully had the good sense to not say why. I never wanted to have her as a partner again.
The only other group projects I had, for health class and Psychology 101, were with dependable people. We communicated well, worked really hard to get an A and both times actually went more than perfect, so at least I had two good experiences with a group project in that college to speak of. I still dread the words: "So next the assignment will be done in groups of X and will be worth Y amount of your grade", though.
The only other group projects I had, for health class and Psychology 101, were with dependable people. We communicated well, worked really hard to get an A and both times actually went more than perfect, so at least I had two good experiences with a group project in that college to speak of. I still dread the words: "So next the assignment will be done in groups of X and will be worth Y amount of your grade", though.
I prefer to work alone because I find other people to be a hassle.
How ever, with age I have come to understand that if you are a truly competent and smart manager, you will use the people around you to do the work, and reap the reward as the person who put everything together.
How ever, with age I have come to understand that if you are a truly competent and smart manager, you will use the people around you to do the work, and reap the reward as the person who put everything together.