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[Davey Cakes]

Can't find fault with your ideas, Charlie. I guess what you said reinforces how well Koomaster handled the situation.

After his group failed to organize and prepare properly, he took things into his own hands to preserve himself. Instead of going down with the ship, he found a way to make the best of the hard work and dedication he put in. Surely you can say that group success is better than individual success, but it's not selfish to want to be successful if the rest of the group doesn't show the same effort. Overcoming these obstacles is just another means of improving the individual and shaping his mindset and abilities in case future similar situations occur.

You're right, I did miss the point of group work. I think group work is actually about a lot of things. I mistakenly cited fun and learning the material. These I do feel are part of what makes group work effective, but it's true that they aren't the point of group work in the first place. They are merely potential components of it.

As a college student myself, I've been on both sides. That is, the hard working side, and the slacking side. The hard-working side is obviously more rewarding because it opens up a lot of opportunities not just to learn, but to improve in other ways and to further grow aware of the many ways to handle new situations. The moment you start mooching off of others and start dragging groups down is the moment that you begin to fail both as a student and as a person. It's a terrible feeling. I don't know how some students can continually do it.

 

[TxdoHawk]

First off, let me just say I absolutely loathe group work, especially in college. I'm sorry, but if you can't play nice with others by the time you graduate high school, there's no hope for you.

Two, this reminds me of one of my last classes, a 400-level Business course where my group had to write a 20-page profile of a company. Everything was painstakingly divided into sections in the syllabus, and each section told you exactly what you had to write.

Regardless of this, this project was a nightmare. Every section my classmates turned in to me for this was a disaster. Not only were there tons and tons of spelling/grammatical errors, but for every section they wrote a general overview of the company, instead of what they were supposed to write in that section. Every. Single. Time.

I started by editing their turn-ins, but eventually I realized that it was faster to just type everything myself from scratch. Toward the end of the semester, when we had about 75% of the document done and I was flooded with work, I simply pasted in their crap into the sections I assigned to them, with minor edits for spelling. Somehow we got a B in the end, but the prof added a note to our front page that was basically "I'm being nice about this."

 

[CharlieDigital]

I never understood this life rebuttal to group projects. Life and group projects have nothing to do with each other. Academic success is based on marks and getting thrown into a group of idiots should not negatively impact your own grade.

Are you still a college student?

 

[Houston3000]

1) Vista has nothing to do with anything when it comes to compatibility, the problem was one of you was using Microsoft Office 2007 while all the rest were using older versions (2003 probably). The person using Office 2007 should of saved their document in compatibility mode so it worked with older versions of Word, or one of you should of downloaded the patch so you can open 2007 files in Office 2003.

2) Group projects are fine if you never rely on one person to do anything by themselves. Whoever was the person who was suppose to compile those answers and mail them to the teacher should of been checked up on, called, emailed, whatever. ESPECIALLY if it was some lolly gagger like you said.

All group projects I ever did in college have worked out well because, if I needed to, I'd take charge of the group and get everyone in-line. Really, only done a few, but we would usually always find a time we could meet in-person outside of class... like in the campus library. I guess something like a completely online class would be hard to manage though.

 

[Big-E]

Are you still a college student?

Yes, I am but I don't see why it matters. Everyday life should prepare you to deal with people, not forcing it in academia when there is no need to.

 

[Fatalah]

All group projects I ever did in college have worked out well because, if I needed to, I'd take charge of the group and get everyone in-line. Really, only done a few, but we would usually always find a time we could meet in-person outside of class... like in the campus library. I guess something like a completely online class would be hard to manage though.

Same here. I'd have my group meet on Sundays if it was the only day possible. Taking the lead is important. PS, not to get into a gender argument, but female students were always the most prepared and serious about deadlines. Always the best people to work with.

 

[Nooreo]

A lolly gager you say...

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Yes, I am but I don't see why it matters. Everyday life should prepare you to deal with people, not forcing it in academia when there is no need to.

School is apart of everyday life for kids young adults... which prepares them for life after college.... Learning to deal with other people in group projects is important. It also helps shy people get friends. My psychology teach asked "Why are you here?" and then said in not so many words "I'll answer it. To get an education and meet people. So, I'll make it easier. Turn to your right and left and get the name, number, and email of the person next to you. You now have a friend to contact if you miss a day of class." That right there was the most inventive way to get people to know each other. Group is the more annoying way.

 

[0 HP]

yeah group projects are bullshit. everyone has a million things going on and its impossible to get everyone on the same page. all my classes do this shit too because "this is how it works in the real world" >:|

 

[ghostmind]

Either Save as 2003 format on the Office 2007 PC or download the 2007 compatibility pack on the 2003 PC...

 

[CharlieDigital]

School is apart of everyday life for kids young adults... which prepares them for life after college.... Learning to deal with other people in group projects is important. It also helps shy people get friends. My psychology teach asked "Why are you here?" and then said in not so many words "I'll answer it. To get an education and meet people. So, I'll make it easier. Turn to your right and left and get the name, number, and email of the person next to you. You now have a friend to contact if you miss a day of class." That right there was the most inventive way to get people to know each other. Group is the more annoying way.

You've got part of the point, but there is an even bigger picture.

I'm a software engineer. Except for my own projects that I work on in my free time, every aspect of my job involves collaborating with other people in my team. I may have to communicate with our developers in Vietnam and make sure that they format their code correctly or use a correct calling convention. I may have to push on business to get details on requirements. I may be waiting for someone else to finish a component that I have a dependency on.

This is all part of managing the reality of working with a group of people who may or may not think like you, who may or may not be as motivated as you, and who may have different levels of knowledge or different sets of expertise. Not to mention in this case, people who live in different time zones (we have developers in Vietnam, 12 hours ahead of me and members of the dev team across 4 time zones in the US) and have different sleep schedules.

Group work in college is about training you to deal with this reality and about exposing you to how to manage collaboration with folks.

This isn't just software development. My wife is a teacher and she works with an in class aide. She works with specials teachers who pull some students out for certain subjects. She needs to make sure that her specials teachers are on the same page with regards to lesson plans. She needs to make sure that substitutes are going to have sufficient guidelines for how to teach the class when she's absent. Ultimately, she is accountable for the student's grades, but she needs to interact and deal with various people who may or may not do their jobs and she needs to handle it in a responsible way (report to the right party, covering her ass, etc).

My sister is a consultant for a venture capital firm. She routinely works on cases with other members and they'll research different aspects of the business and they'll need to provide a report to their manager on whether they should invest in a business and how much they should invest and under what conditions (etc). She needs to work with people in her own company, people in the company they are investigating, and people who may have industry expertise to review patents, product pipelines, existing products, pending litigation, etc. She needs to be able to manage these interactions and ensure that she delivers her report on time (as best as she can), regardless of whether her teammate is slacking or if person X won't return her phone calls.

The real world is about taking responsibility. There's no such thing as "I'll do it myself" once you get beyond a certain level of complexity; very few people are capable of accomplishing great undertakings by themselves. College group work (and group work from kindergarten) is designed to expose you to how to collaborate, communicate, and manage your interactions with people. It's just that at the college level, it's more important than ever since you are just a handful of years away from actually having to work in an environment where you'll depend on others (and others will depend on you) to get a larger task done.

Embrace the challenge and find out where you fit in the grand scheme of things. Are you a capable leader? Can you successfully motivate others to do their work? Can you man up when others fall short? You guys that just kind of poo-poo group work and say that you hate it, you're going to be really fucking miserable for the next 40-50 years of your life if you don't get the hang of it. Even if you start your own business or become a small business owner, you still have to work with employees who show up late, employees who don't show up, employees who fuck up, customers, vendors, contractors, and so on. You can only be 100% self sufficient for so long before your personal and professional growth is stymied.

 

[nyong]

The biggest problem with group projects in college is that some people don't give a shit because there are no real consequences yet. Most won't get booted from college and they probably squeeze by perfectly happy with C-'s. Once you're on the job, slacking can (ideally) get you fired.

My nightmare group project was in WR 321. One douchebag on our team always skipped out on our meetings because of basketball practice (I HATE most athletes...). Anyhow, we had a 25-page paper due at the end of class that we were supposed to have worked on for weeks in advance. He constantly claimed he was "working on it" and basically told the team to chill out and that he would come through, despite showing us dick-squat. I knew we were getting screwed from the start. At the end of the class, when we're supposed to be putting everything together, the idiot turns off his phone and ignores everyone. We have to research and re-write his portion of the paper the night before. I was up literally all night, from 5pm until 11am, in the computer lab.

Although this story has a happy ending. I actually went to the professor and told him what had happened. He failed the idiot when he couldn't produce proof that he had done anything (he claimed to have sent an email w/attachment). We got an A. Apparently I'm still supposed to watch my back too...

 

[Fersis]

Skool is 4 loosers lolz


I hated school with every fiber of my body

 

[Akim]

Anytime I am assigned group work I always ask the professor if I can do it by myself. I don't know if this makes me antisocial, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

If I'm forced to be in a group, I'll usually just do it myself anyways.

 

[Y2Kev]

I hate group work sometimes. I've been in a study group with four other people now working on reading guides for the class' 900000 pages of reading. The deadline was Sunday at 8 after we formed the previous sunday and two people have STILL NOT SENT THEIR THINGS IN. I'm generally comfortable with groups but there has to be some mechanism of accountability-- like you won't get your reading guides until you send yours in. The technology for that isn't really here in this setup, so we've got like free rider problem up the ass.

if only we could set up a neoliberal institution

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

This is why when depending on screw-ups and/or morons, you hound them incessantly to make sure shit gets done. Gotta walk them step by step through the whole process, and then be in contact up until the moment they hit "send", or your shit will be fucked up somehow.

Sorry man.

 

[TxdoHawk]

You guys that just kind of poo-poo group work and say that you hate it, you're going to be really fucking miserable for the next 40-50 years of your life if you don't get the hang of it.

See, this is where I take issue with the pro-group-work people. This always gets brought up. Because I hate college group work, I am obviously a terrible team player, and I'm destined to fail in all future collaboration efforts. No, no, a thousand times no. I don't have a problem with collaboration in a job environment. Real work ensures real consequences for one's actions.

She needs to be able to manage these interactions and ensure that she delivers her report on time (as best as she can), regardless of whether her teammate is slacking or if person X won't return her phone calls.

I want to point out this paragraph. Herein lies the difference. If she can't do her job because of other people, this will be recognized, and any reasonable supervisor will either forgive you and/or work with you to resolve issues. College group projects don't work like this. 90% of professors will tell you that if you have a problem, you need to either work it out with that team member or enjoy your shitty grade.

Furthermore, I have a problem with this whole idea that college group projects somehow give people some amazing skill set that prepares them for the "real world" of collaboration. There's no massive secret to working with others. Do your assigned job, don't be a dick, help other people when you can as needed, ask for help if you need it. I can take a team of hand-picked kids straight out of middle school that understand these four basic ideas, and they will do a better job than a random sampling of college kids with "superior experience in collaborative efforts" or whatever bullshit a professor will try to tell people these days.