• Diss

  • My hatred of group projects

So this has nothing in particular to do with webnovel, but I honestly just needed to rant.

I am an engineering major working on a senior design project and a number of other group projects for engineering classes, and I'm fed up with groupwork.

Every time I try to get anyone to do literally anything, I get one of the following responses.

  1. Sure, ok! Of course! I'll look into it!
    After which, the person completely forgets about it, and I come back to the shared document the next week only to see one particular set of words.

"Last Edited 1 week ago by you"

Ok buddy. What, you 'looked into it' but didn't do anything?

  1. Straight up getting ignored. Some people when assigned work won't even respond, pretending like it isn't their work to do. Then when the time to get it done comes around, I get stuck doing it.

  2. The person says they'll do it but then they end up coming to me and say something along the lines of "I tried but I couldn't figure it out." Then I end up scheduling a meeting with them in which I end up basically doing the entire thing while they watch me.

  3. "Sorry man, I have so much work right now to do so I can't do it."
    How many times have I heard this statement? People are so quick to do their own personal work because they're being held by professors to do their own homework, their own studying, their own assignments, and yet as soon as the responsibility becomes a shared responsibility, they just forget about it and think 'Not my responsibility anymore. Someone will pick up the slack.'

And I always end up being that someone.

I'm sick of it. Going to the teacher with the issue will just create even more issues and conflict when they receive a bad grade, so I'm stuck in a spot where I just have to bite my lip and do the work.

And you know, I hate when I see this.

I send a message to my group telling them that I got a bunch of work done. Immediately I get a response from everyone. "Thanks for doing all that." "I appreciate it."

I send a message listing out the tasks that need to be done over the next week by each person.

Nothing. No response. No acknowledgement that these people have to complete their own tasks.

Most of all though, I'm sick of hearing these words.
"Man, I sure am glad I got a good group to work with this time."

Funny thing is, I always hear those words. I never say them myself though.

That's because I am the good group. If I wasn't in the group, it wouldn't be a good group. And to me, it's never a good group.

If you want something done right you have to do it yourself. This is what I've learned over and over and over. Nobody will do the work if you don't.

So if you're one of these people who doesn't put forth the effort to get a project done just because it's a group project, shame on you. If you're one of the people who let's one person do all the work and then takes the credit at the end, shame on you.

And if you are one of the people who actually puts forth the effort to do the work, then thank you for existing. Because you are clearly extremely rare.

    I understand the frustration. That is why I hate group projects and always hope I get my friends or a hard working person. I may not be one of the people, but let me say what you deserve to hear, “Thank you for your hard work.”

    And honestly, I don’t care for starting bad conflict. If I have to do all the work and they do nothing, I’m telling and they will get a bad grade. I’m not going to let my partners get a good grade if I’ve done all the work.
    And if they are mad, let them be mad.

    You shouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself for selfish people. It is your work that they did not pitch in, they shouldn’t get a good grade for something you did. I know it leads to conflict and confrontations, but it has to happen because it will leave you stressed out if you hold it in. And stress is not good for you.

      Thanks for describing my a majority of my group projects. It's both warming and disheartening that this issue is not common to me but all students.

        From my experience, it is incredibly hard to force people to make a small contribution for a common goal.
        For all group projects only one person got to work on it. And so, we always did out work on projects in rotation.
        It is much easier to do a big job alone, that way you are more productive as you need to figure out all aspects of project and gain full understanding (rather than do small bit of work on project that you barely understand).
        To split work between others you need to fully understand what needs to be done. If you already understood what needs to be done, why not do it yourself? It is much faster than collective work.

          Dubstheduke If I were you, I straight up tell the professor and if they won't deal with it, then you go to your advisor. I was in that same position once and I'm computer engineering technology major, my group straight up gives bs lie and expect me to do everything. I emailed the professor about it and told him that I rather work alone since I'm doing all the work and giving credits to freeloaders is not my personality.

          They can get the straight F's because my professor didn't tell them that I'm working alone so when the assignment is due, they all failed the damn project and looked at me. I could care less about their look since they have done absolutely zero shet and I saw them playing games in the discord group.

          In the end, they failed the course because the project was 20% of the grade and their grades are shet to begin with and I get the A I deserved.

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