Group Projects

Group projects suck. They are super stressful and unnecessary. One of my professors has claimed that group projects will help us learn to work with people in the future. I believe that that isn’t true. When we get out in the work force, we won’t be working with others on projects very much and when we do we will actually have time to get together.

One thing I hate about group projects is that it is hard to find a time to get together and work. With everyone’s busy schedules in college, finding a time where everyone in the group is free to meet is almost impossible. Therefore sometimes, the group decides to spilt up the assignment and email one person the designated parts to put the whole thing together. This leads to my second compliant about group projects: there is always someone who doesn’t do their part and someone who has to do the whole thing. Sometimes people send inadequate work to the person who has volunteered to put it together and that person has to spend time redoing it. It is just not fair.

I also hate when every member in the group gets the same grade, when not every member did the same amount of work. It is not fair when someone who spends virtually no time working on the project and someone who spent hours perfecting the project both gets A’s.

I have been screwed over far too many times during group projects. I have had a group not send me their information so I had to quickly do their part one hour before the assignment was due. I have had a partner forget to save the work she did while I was in class and thus had to redo her part. I have had a partner return the camera back to media services before saving the content to the computer and thus had to track down the camera we used. I have had people cancel meetings on me because they were too hung over to work. I am the type of person who likes to plan and get things done, so when someone else messes with that, I get a little pissed off.

I hate group projects and I hope I never have to do one again. And if I ever become a teacher, I will never assign a group project to my students.