The thing about group work is that it inherently takes a task that you could have accomplished in a short amount of time on your own and triples it, along with bombarding your inbox with millions of emails when/where/how should we meet.
I almost always prefer to work on my own. Having reached grad school I thought I had finally left the world of partners and group projects behind (I mean of my 3 classes, the largest one had 15 people... so they really don't need to pair you up to reduce marking ok). But alas, I still have to suffer through it, every other week.
Once in undergrad, my partner, who were were supposed to be paired with for the whole year got bit by a rabid dog and later dropped the course (unrelated reasons) and so I got to be a group of one! It was bliss! (she was fine, don't worry)
I know that working well in groups is an important skill to develop, and that some groups can be very effective... but for the most part its a huge pain!
Is it really so bad that I don't play well with others?
Do you have any group project train wreck stories... or times when everything went perfectly smoothly?
Oh man I could write a whole novel on group work train wrecks. One even resulted in a blow up on the morning of our Senior send-off party.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't have to worry about group work in grad school? A girl can dream...
yeesh blow ups are the worst! I thought I wouldn't have to worry about it in grad school I thought wrong....if only there was a way to live entirely in my own little school bubble...
DeleteSo many stories, being stood up, doing all the work, getting credit stolen galore!
ReplyDeleteDoing all the work sucks.... but even worse is when someone in the group does their part... but does it so poorly you end up redoing most of it.
DeleteGirl you are speaking my language. I was always the crazy girl in group projects that would take the entire workload on myself just so that I wouldn't have to deal with anyone else and I could be sure it would be done correctly. I do not play well with others! You sound like you handle it better than I do - regardless I hope you have non-awful groups for the rest of your schooling!
ReplyDeleteHaha sometimes it's better to just take on all the work at the start (it really does save you work in the long run) thanks for the well wishes... one can hope right!
DeleteI've not had any group work disasters, mostly just people that do a kind of crappy job and instead of asking them to re-do it I've just done it myself. Kind of irritating when people have different standards, or are just looking to pass and don't think any further effort is required!
ReplyDeleteA few of my friends have marked group assignments, and while there's less to mark, having to deal with all the complaints of group members ends up adding heaps more work anyway! So it really doesn't seem worth it.
Yeah, that is often the case when you get assigned groups, if you get to pick them yourselves you have the pro: working with people you like and likely have similar work standards vs the con: greater potential for dramatic blowups
DeleteAnd so it seems no one wins with group work, if the people grading it feel that way as well.