So I’m a full time grad student and my degree requires a ridiculous amount of group work. And guess what? Group work sucks shit. Every time there’s group work I’m stuck with a bunch of lazy, borderline-illiterate goofballs or arrogant jerks who think their stupid ideas are the only ones that matter. Note to my profs: stop assigning group work! We are grad students, not in elementary school. You know one or 2 people ALWAYS have to do the bulk of the work and yet the whole damned group gets the same damned mark. I HATE GROUP WORK!
—Grrrrroup Work
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2009.
Hate grad group work as well.
As least in the work environment, there’s a power dynamic of who is in charge.
On one project 2 out of 4 of my group mates didn’t even show up. I told the prof, and he said “Good luck getting it done!”
In uni I picked my classes specifically to avoid group work. I had two group projects in my whole degree and I ended up doing the majority of the work in both cases.
Insert a page kind of like a Table of Contents and give credit to who did what work.
You may hate it, but it one of the few real life scenarios you get in university. You think it’s bad now, just wait til you start working and see how some places operate.
true story… there are slackers in every group, not just in school.
In reality, he is actually teaching you to get used to it.
some will pick up the slack and get the promotions, some will slack off and stay at the same level job for years on end.
Group work ALWAYS involves the biggest, youngest, most stupid dumbasses having to be the team leader and express all the ideas. It sucks that one’s mark depends on others’ involvement. In my group work experiences, our groups had topics that I was familiar with and nobody else was. That didn’t matter; they all knew more than I did and my input didn’t matter.
My input would have made the difference between the C we received and the A that could be.
“You know one or 2 people ALWAYS have to do the bulk of the work and yet the whole damned group gets the same damned mark” Because, ya know, real life never involves working as a team. Welcome to the next 40 years of your life.
Group work shows you how to deal with these dumbasses and rise above it. Initiative and strong work ethic alone are enough to put a group through, even if done by one person. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and wasting your time by posting a bitch, when you could be going the extra mile to ENSURE your project passes. Then when you get out into the big bad world out there…and show how well you can work in and out of Group dynamics, employers will be impressed. In the military there are always people who do poorly in a group, but ive always found that the group comes together at some point. Things they dont teach at schools anymore.
Unlike a professor overseeing an entire class, in the ‘real world’ bosses tend to realize who’s pulling the most weight and who’s just coasting along. As you move on to new jobs, that boss can be used as a reference to your character and abilities. In school, a professor can’t usually vouch for any particular student and therefore your grade is the main indicator of your skills and abilities. When your grade depends on group work, and your group sucks, it reflects poorly on you. And that just plain sucks balls.
So…while group work is an important skill, I don’t think it should constitute a very large proportion of the grade.
I tended to like group work in school. I liked the social experiences and found it was a good way to get work done together with different ideas and a good way to make friends.
Sure there could always be a few idiots, but usually laying down the rules for them, talking to the professor if needed, and knowing that they’re probably not going to even graduate in the end usually made you feel better. On the other side, there were the mega-keeners who weren’t happy unless you had the project done perfectly above and beyond what was actually needed two weeks before the actual deadline. These were usually people who didn’t have that many classes or part-time jobs and another life to deal with.
Maybe I was the slacker!
I love group work !
Any of you ever tried to put a stage & sound towers together (like those on the Halifax Commons), by yourself ?
Most of the profs I’ve had for classes involving group work have encouraged kicking members out of your group who aren’t pulling their weight. It’s simple: if they don’t do the work, their name doesn’t deserve to be put on the final report. It is unfortunate that you have to deal with this, but if you plan on working in a business environment this is exactly the kind of crap you’ll have to deal with on a regular basis. If the class you’re in has a form of peer evaluation, be sure to be as harsh as possible about those people who didn’t do the work, and the prof will mark accordingly.
I hate group work sometimes because I seemingly always get stuck with a bunch of dumbasses and I end up doing all the work because I don’t trust the other members in my group and hay! I’d like to get a decent mark that’s reflective of my efforts/intelligence. That might sound a bit snobbish, but honestly, it burns my ass that I do all the work (yes, by my own volition), and others get the credit, but in the end, I still get a mark in the A range so I guess that’s some consolation.
And NGF STILL owes me a cookie from that time two years ago where my ass ended up staying up until 6am finishing our partner project because he was cranky because he had been “at school all day”….jerk! I especially loved it when he announced on msn “I’m going to bed now! nite!” around 1am ish…asshole.
Its funny to me b/c I logged off to get drunk and play blackjack with hookers.
You better still feel bad about that, fatso!
I think if you`re grad students and you handle group work that freakin poorly, you need to grow up.
Hmmm. With the possible exception of qpmxeonwdthscqraekrmnfbs, everyone here claims that “they always got stuck with the dumbass slacker”.
What are the odds that here, years later, on this lonely little forum…you’d coincidently have a chance meeting of all chiefs, but no indians?
No, really, I meant what ARE the odds?
lmao
hookers and blackjack!
those are like my two favorite things ever….
cards and women who don’t nag!
baD mR fRosTy,
Let’s say an average group size of 3.
Let’s say an average number of group projects per person of 4.
Let’s say roughly 10 bitchers posting or at least thinking they were always the MVP.
1 in 120…or less than a 1% chance. Them’s long odds. 🙂
I never said I tend to get stuck with slackers — I said I tend to get stuck with dumbasses, Frosty. There’s a difference.
I do all the work because I don’t trust most of the people I work with…plus I find it easier just to do the shit myself because I know it gets done properly and the way I want it done. It’s easier to do that than explain to them how to do it the way I want it done.
I just like things the way I like things, and anyone who doesn’t like that can suck it. I always get us a great mark so I don’t think anyone I’ve worked with is in a position to complain.
You’re right, Pretty Kitty. Those people in your class didn’t actually go to university to learn anything themselves, just to ride on the coattails of the class hero. They wouldn’t benefit from being assigned tasks, and they definitely don’t have a way they like things done, and should never be given a chance to develop one. It’s so great that you’re saving them from developing into useful humans. Delegation isn’t really an important skill in life and work anyway, so this rigid control freak schtick should take you far.
And that’s the reason I hate group work, or the way apparently done around here – when everyone has one mark regardless, it inevitably leads to some type A flipping out and taking over. Which isn’t really helpful for anyone.
PK…it might be a good idea for you to cut and paste some of the things you’ve actually written here, and in a few years, when you’re, erm, shall we say a little “older” and hopefully wiser… read them back to yourself.
I bet you’ll have a real “Oprah” moment where you’re like ” Oh. My. God. I can’t believe I used to think like that Dr, Phil, I was soooo wrong about myself.”
And then everyone will cry and hug…and maybe Oprah will surprise you with some old school chums…you know, the “dumbasses” that you made do everything “like YOU wanted”, the ones you “didn’t trust”, and that “shouldn’t complain”…
You know, there’s a nlot more to being a “leader” than having the most dolls to throw out of the crib, PK…