Assigning group projects is popular among professors and it is driving me nuts. The dreadful words “group project” are completely cringe-worthy. They are the bane of education and they must be stopped.
Working with people is beneficial for a future in any workforce, but working with people who don’t care about your grade is infuriating. Group projects have been forced on students ever since grade school and they seem to get worse every single time. Most of the time the professor randomly assigns the groups without considering which students put effort into their work and which students procrastinate.
Controlling group members are another downfall of cooperative projects. It’s great when the other members of your group take the assignment seriously, but there is a fine line between taking initiative and taking control. It is beyond frustrating when you just want to do your job and someone is telling you you’re wrong. I have dealt with a group member who took all the work I had done for my slide of the PowerPoint, deleted it, and then replaced it all with their own work. I understand that not getting your way and having to work with others is frustrating, but if I put effort into my part, do not delete it because my name is on the project for a reason.
Slackers have to be the worst part of group projects. There is nothing more annoying than having to deal with a group member who just does not care. There have been far too many times when a group member either waited until last minute to do anything or did their part so poorly it had no real contribution to the assignment. The saddest part is when you are penalized for their indifference towards the project.
Let us not forget about the aggravating grading process. It is not fair that group projects are graded as a whole instead of individually. If one person slacks off and does not complete their part or completes it poorly, the whole group is penalized for their mistakes and lack of effort. It’s almost as if the hard work students do means nothing to the project whatsoever.
If group members did their part and did not take control and each member was graded individually, students may be more open to group projects. Until then, group projects are the worst things professors can assign.
