Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Mass Genocide in Group Study Rooms...

Gag me and throw me in a river.

Group Projects have got to be one of the worst ideas ever.

Pros-
*Massive amounts of work are made manageable
*You kind of get to know people

Cons-
*Your partner/groupmate disappears into thin air
*Despite your multiple attempts to notify everyone in your group of a meeting, you're the only one who shows up
*You get stuck doing all the work, even though you're the youngest in the group
*You have to deal with annoying people with BAD ideas
*You actually have to spend hours on campus meeting and talking yourselves in circles
*Group projects tend to be horrifically unspecific, thus causing everyone to interpret the assignment differently.
*You want to say, "I told you so," but you don't want to offend anyone
*Clashing schedules
*Clashing interests
*Clashing social habits
*Group presentations in front of the entire class
*Competing with other groups
*Taking the blame, when you only got a disappointing grade on an aspect of the project someone else forgot to do, and you had to throw together at the last second, but no one knows it, so they think you're an idiot.
*Constant complaining tends to irritate the husband
*You like one person in the group, but not another person, so it's hard not to focus more attention to the one you actually get along with without offending the other person
*You have to deal with other people's procrastination problems (mine are bad enough)
*Empty promises
*Horrible, terrible, awful, blood-sucking, brain-shrinking, death-wishing, bad, bad, bad bad, bad group projects

And while the cons HEAVILY outweigh the pros, it's still better than doing the WHOLE thing alone.


Such a catch-22 (if I'm even using that right). GAH!

4 comments:

Anne Pearson Photography said...

Oh...I miss you. Would you hurry and get pregnant and have a baby so I can see you guys again! JK... you crack me up!

Unknown said...

I agree... group projects bite for all of the above reasons. That's why you become a flake and let other people do the work! Or... give a hand out at the beginning of your presentation of each part and what each person was assigned to do. Then if they don't do it, they look dumb! YES!!!

Andrea Olsen said...

This is why I ultimately end up doing the whole group project alone. GAH.
I completely understand.

Only once in a blue moon do you get a group who actually WORKS together.

Lacey said...

I always thought I liked group projects until college. Horrible. THey are the worst idea ever.