Group projects: Two of the scariest words that can be put together in the English language. If you've ever worked in a group project, you know all too well the four types of people who always seem to comprise the group.
1. The One Who Does All the Work. Sometimes this group member is the self-assumed leader and takes all the work upon themselves, but often times this burden just happens to fall on the one good student in the group. This person is responsible for instigating the group discussion and usually has to probe information from their classmates. This group member usually has to divide up the work within the group, piece together the paper, make the PowerPoint, and pray their teammates follow through to come to presentation day.
2. The One Who Seems Like They Know What They're Doing But They Actually Have No Idea. This person seems like they're good a teammate because they show a valiant effort. but when you read their work. you question if they even know the name of this class. There are spelling and grammar errors everywhere and they didn't write about what they were supposed to, and now the one who has to do all the work has to basically rewrite everything.
3. The One You Didn't Even Know Was In the Class. Most likely the only reason why this kid showed up during the group work class period was because their friend told them the class was starting a group project. They came in late to the class, and your group was probably the one group that was short a person so the teacher put them in your group. You don't know this classmate, and the classmate doesn't know any of you and they don't even introduce themselves. They sit there on their phone the whole time, while the rest of you do everything. You ask what part of the project they can do, and they say they'll do the title slide and works cited slide of the PowerPoint. How helpful.
4. The One Who Never Shows Up. Each time your group meets, there's always that one person who showed up maybe once. You send them emails to try to keep them in the loop, but they probably don't respond. When it comes to presentation day, they don't show up, and now you and your group mates have to BS this person's part of the presentation to save yourselves from losing points.
Group projects are inevitable during school, and so are the types of people that you will have to work with. No matter who you are in these projects, good luck on that presentation.
