If you've ever been a student, elementary, middle, high school, college, whatever, you have probably experienced what I can only describe as a living nightmare: a group project.
Just to make it clear, a group project is a task that three or more students must complete for a grade. The premises of this task can range from a science fair poster board or a presentational short skit on the mechanics of an eyeball. Groups can be randomly formed by the teacher (the usual, more traditional route) or picked by the students themselves (which can result in the end of a friendship if not picked carefully).
Either way, it sucks and either way, you will be experiencing the following…
Finding a time to meet that works for everyone in your group
There's always that one person who's schedule never syncs up with everyone else's because she absolutely has to wash her cat every other day at exactly 6:03 p.m. to 7:14 p.m. You end up meeting at a very obscure hour on like, a Tuesday only to find out five minutes before you're supposed to meet after you're all at the meeting location, that she needs a ride because she doesn't have a car. You and your other group members just decide to skype call her in or keep her posted via your GroupMe message.
Headache scale: 3/5
That one group member who does the bare minimum to absolutely nothing at all
Traditionally, this is the same person who needs to wash her cat every day. They do little to no work at all and yet, always seem to have passively aggressive feedback for every member in the group. This person is can go one of two ways:
1) they never respond in the GroupMe and have the chat muted or
2) they overcompensate for their lack of contribution by talking too much in the GroupMe.
This person tends to talk the most during the actual presentation.
Headache scale: 4/5
Opposing views on something
Warner Bros. Pictures
Whether it be the topic you guys are researching or what kind of aesthetic your presentation is going for, there will be opposing views on something but being non-confrontational college students, all parties will be a little too nice about it when arguing for their case.
Headache scale: 2/5
Dividing the group work up fairly
I really don't need to explain myself on this one. Y'all know what the stress is like making sure you have a good, easy portion but it's also equal in the eyes of the other group members who are probably going to evaluate you at the end of the project.
Headache scale: 3/5
The actual presentation
If you have to actually present your group project, one or more of the following usually occurs:
1) a member of your group doesn't show up to class that day so you have to reshuffle presentation parts.
2) your presentation isn't loading.
3) you created your presentation on a Mac and the conversion over to a PC screws up the whole aesthetic you all were working so hard on.
4) someone in your group is a terrible public speaker which can dock points off your final grade.
5) you actually don't end up going on that day because the other group projects ran overtime so you and your fellow group members get to stress about it for another 48 hours.
Headache scale: 5/5
Grading and evaluation
Getting your scoring sheets back for the group grade and reading the comments and silently blaming your group members for why you lost points (you KNEW you should've gone for your aesthetic but nooo they all had to go with Stacy's dumb idea) For individual grades, you've made sure you congratulated your entire group so you get a good evaluation but then for group evals, you either rip your members a new one by telling it like it is or you chicken out and give them all (even Stacy) a decent review.
Headache scale: 3/5
Moral scale: 4/5
Group projects. Ya gotta love 'em!
