As college students, we are constantly bombarded with many projects. When it comes to projects, most fall under the category of group projects rather than individual projects. Also, professors love to assign group members based on a random generator, making it even more difficult to work with your friends or with who you want. Because of this, there have been many complaints and heated discussions about group projects.
When a professor puts random people in a group, it is all up to luck as to who gets put in your group: members that do their fair share of the work, members that don't do anything, members that do everything last minute, and members that do everything because they don't like other contributions. There are so many possibilities and combinations of these different kinds of members, which makes many people dread group projects. Also, another thing is that the skill level and knowledge are not equal throughout the members. If one member wants a part of the project like their own way and idea, and the other members do not know how to make it like that, it can be difficult to divide up the work.
Group projects, although great for collaboration and networking, is really a hit or miss for many students. Throughout my two years and a half in college, I have gotten all types of members in my group for projects. I experienced group projects where I had to do a lot of the work, where most of the work was already finished, and where my skills were not as advanced to how some of my members wanted the project to look like. With all of these experiences, I have learned a lot about myself in group projects, which type of member I am, and what everyone else in the group thinks of me as.
I can definitely say that I have probably been each one of the members, depending on the class and my mood during projects. I think that when working on group projects, the topic and ideas in the class are just as important as how much passion and effort you put into the project. There are some projects where I know I won't do as well because it doesn't seem to interest. Vice versa, some projects I love to work on and will put in all my effort and time to create a masterpiece.
What you should take out of group projects is to decide which member you are and how other people may feel about your efforts. I know that I have slacked off, which I regret because I realized that all the other group members are probably in the same situation as me, where they are also put with people they do not work well with. The best thing to do is just put in all your effort and time to work on group projects, no matter the work and unfairness, because "everything that goes around, comes around". If you have been placed in a bad group, next time, you will be placed in a good group where your efforts will definitely pay off.
