Group project.

Those are either your two favorite words, or your most despised.

For me, they are the most dreaded words in the English language. I tend to be a control freak and a little OCD about things, and I hate letting my grade rest in the hands of someone else. Most other type A personalities probably can relate. Here are the steps of how I handle it.

Photo via Cengage Brain

1. Figure out what kind of partners you have.

This is the biggie. There are two kinds of people in this world -- those who want to do all the work, and those who want to do none. So if all goes as hoped for, the other people in the group will be super lazy and really glad that I want to do the whole project myself. They are happy, I'm happy, everyone wins and gets A's. If that's the case, you will breeze through the project and feel completely confident about your grade. But usually it is not that easy.

The problem is running into people like myself. It's hard to try to hog the project because they are trying to hog it too, and they actually put effort in, and we have to (gasp) combine ideas.

2. Try to subtly hog the whole project.

This includes avoiding meeting group members so I can do the whole project and e-mail it to them before they have the chance to do anything. They are either grateful you did all the work and it ends there, or they get angry and insist on doing work. Then you have to completely review what they did and make your own changes without them noticing. This is YOUR project, and it will be perfect.

3. Go a week without sleep because you cannot rest knowing the fate of your grade is partially in someone else's hands.

You NEED an A in this class, but you just KNOW your group members are going to make your grade sink like the Titanic. This project is literally all you can think about from the assignment date to the due date. It is the first thing you think about when you wake up and your last thought before bed. Unless you can take total control of the project, you obsess.

4. Once it is turned in, check Blackboard every five seconds to see if the grade has been posted yet. *cries and eats large quantities of chocolate*

The most stressful part. You review what was turned in and notice every little detail that should have been done differently, and just know you failed and are waiting until the grades are posted to come to terms with it. One does not simply rest when they are uncertain of their academic fate.

5. Finally! The grades have been posted! And you did fine. So you can chill... until the next group project, anyway.