Ever been a member of a group project when only you do the work?

[Koosh]

So here's a story...

Beginning of September in my Natural Resources History and Policy class, we got into groups of 6 people for a debate due in the middle of November. Our group chose the topic of Prescribed Fires... how the debate was structered is two people are the Agency... neutral parties who open and close the debate and give backround information on the subject... then two people argue for the policy, two people argue against the policy.

The neutral group has 3 minutes to open and close debate, while the two groups arguing have a 3 minute presenation, and 2 minute rebuttal after the other sides presentation.

SO ANYWAY...

It turns out that my debate partner decides to drop the class and not really tell anyone. He showed up for a few of our meetings, then didn't answer phone calls, emails, or show up for calss since the middle of october.

So naturally, I procrastinate. On our day to go, I feel I am totally unprepared and tell this to my group members and the professer. He accomdates it, and makes us be the last group to go. As it turns out, we run out of time before we have a chance to go and I get a "reprieve" of two weeks.

So naturally, I procrastinate. Its the day of the debate (yesterday) and I am frantically trying to get all my information together, and I do get enough facts down to fill my 5 minutes of speech and not sound like a total retard. During all this we prepare each of our presenations seperately.

The debate begins. The guy from the Neutral party gives a great speech using powerpoint, I start to get a little nervous. He turns it over to the "opposing" debate group..

The first sign I get that something is wrong is when he stops talking after 45 seconds. Then looks at me as if its my turn to go. Is he frigging JOKING me? I've been subtely freaking out over this for the last 3 weeks, in the last 24 hours I pull together a nice 3 minute long speech, and you give me 45 seconds worth? Eh, maybe his rebuttal will be better.

It wasn't. The other group member mumbles something out, then once again looks at me signaling that I have to again embarrass him with my well thought out albeit rushed 2 minute rebuttal of his 30 second speech...

The other "neutral party" member did an OK job closing the debate, but I was still amazed at the lack of substance and organization on the side opposing me...

I can't talk too much crap, I waited until nearly the last minute, but I pulled together it together by myself, while every other group in every other debate I've seen has a partner...

Anyway... long post, no point, me whining, everyone wins in the end...

[Destructo6]

Happens every time.

Shared responsibility = no responsibility.

Actually, I shouldn't say that. I had a group programming project and our group was one of the better during presentations and the preparation leading up to them.

[Target Practice]

Story of my school career, Koosh.

[Muzikman]

To be honest, depending on the class, I would rather do all the work.

Years ago in my Networking class in college we had a group project that consisted of 5 people. I told the group the first day that I would do all the work, they just have to present it. Ya know what, we had the best system and presentation in the class and it was easier for me to do the work on my own which gave the rest of the group the time to prep for the presentation, which to be honest, was so little work, that if 4 weeks was not enough to make a kick arse one I would have been mad.

[LudavicoSoldier]

In a situation like that, I would also prefer to do all the work. When it comes to things that affect my GPA, i'd rather not trust other fools to carry their own/my weight.

[Koosh]

Yeah, the only problem is that I'm not sure how the professer never really made it clear how he was going to grade it... If it was a group grade for the overall debate, then I should be more pissed off... But individual grades then I wouldn't really care. I did good on my part, how can it be my fault if you screwed up yours?

[Chris42050]

Okay I'll be the first one. I am the guy that lets everyone else do the work in the group. If someone else is willing to do the work and I have to do the easy part. I'm gonna take advantage. I could care less about GPA's and such. Please no flames. You have your way. I have mine. Time for Ninja mode.

[Halliday]

Small groups suck.

[slade]

dont get me started...

last year i had a group project with two other kids, one of which is somewhat okay, but the other is a complete idiot. he kept wasting time talking about random crap, and the kid that is somewhat smart listens to him, so im basically stuck doing all the work as long as the stupid kid is around. throughout the whole project i did almost everything, and during the presentation (a full-day debate, 6 solid hours) i was the only one talking, since the other two knew nothing about the project and were slackers anyway. they only talked about 5% of the time each (seriously) and i had to write out what they were going to say (since even work distribution is part of the criteria) then afterwards we had a "group evaluation" where we said what we did and graded everyone else in the group. i gave said i did just about everything, and for the score i gave myself more than the other two. (i decided to be a bit nice and gave myself 12, and the others 10 and 8, 10 being average, and the scores had to add up to 30.) it turns out the other two did about the same, instead of being honest, and the teacher didnt even look at what we wrote, but just averaged the our scores for each other together, so i ended up with about the same grade as the other two. then on the evaluation sheet, he took points off because i did 90% of the talking, and the work distribution wasnt even... essentially taking points off from my grade because he put me with two slackers . and, of course, he took points off (from all of our grades) because of low quality parts of the project, because they slacked.

edit - oh yeah, and a LONG while ago i had a joint project with a girl who spend a WHOLE class period deciding what font to use, and then while actually working, complains if i try to add some coherency to anything she wrote... and then on the next project the teacher said to keep the same partner, and then the one after that, she switches the partners around... but somehow i ended up still being with her.

[gimp]

My school (RPI) puts you in team environments all the time. We have classes that are about how to work in a team. It's really helpful. I've never had any problems working in a team. A lot of hi tech companys are team based, so it's something I have to get used to. I actually prefer to work in a team then work alone.

[Thunder Bunny]

9th grade.

Biology.

Disection.

Me in a group with two sissy girls.

Every time.

Questions?

[slade]

9th grade.

Biology.

Disection.

Me in a group with two sissy girls.

Every time.

Questions?

were they hot?










well, you asked for questions .

[Mango]