Group Projects

[futuremrsmlb]

Still boycotting group work in graduate programs!!:willynilly:

[Bibby]

I had so many team projects while I was working towards my bachelor's degree. I was always the team leader - or in one case, doing the stuff the team leader should've been doing! Despite the endless procrastination and occasional drama I dealt with, every project turned out pretty nice - and never put a dent in my perfect 4.0 GPA.

I understand the reasoning behind why academic team projects have become commonplace - in real life, a lot of work involves collaborating in cross-functional teams. That said, it's extremely hard to keep teammates engaged and accountable in team projects. If you accept nothing less than an A in the class, and you're paired up with students who want to do the bare minimum to pass the class, guess who's going to be doing all the work? A wise lady who taught one of my programming classes (a class with no team project component!) told me that I should view my partners as consultants - people you can bounce ideas off of, but not people you should expect to contribute a lot of work. If they actually pull their weight, though, then that's icing on the cake or whatever clichà you prefer.

BOTH classes have had at least 1 team member not turn in their portion of the work. It's completely ridiculous.

I can top that. I have had several classes where a teammate was assigned to me and ended up dropping the class - after the deadline for getting a refund for the class, no less. They never tell you in advance, either - they just vanish and don't bother to tell you or the professor.

I did a meta-analysis of peer review sheets and other data from my team projects, and I've found that the format of the team project definitely makes a difference. In my experience, there are three tiers of team projects:

Great: Classes where you can choose your own partners
Good: Classes where the professor chooses partners on some rational basis - such as diverse personality types and skillsets
Ugh: Classes where teams are chosen randomly

I had a mix of face-to-face, hybrid, and online classes, and I can attest that online team projects are usually an utter mess. Team projects are one of the main reasons why I'm unlikely to consider any online graduate programs. In-class team projects are bad enough, but when you can't even see the people you're working with, you have a recipe for the most interesting forms of procrastination and misunderstanding. The best team projects are the ones you can work on in class - this way, the professor can monitor what's going on in each group, and you can get help if you need any guidance.

Maybe I'll be able to escape the horrors of team projects in grad school, although I bet I'll be having a whole lot of those. I'll probably have better teammates at the graduate level, though, and I hope that the lessons I learned from previous projects will help me do a better job of leading them.

[Cmglaser08]

I know this is old but yes I officially hate group projects

[ashkir]

I always somehow get assigned to groups that do nothing and full of entitled rich kids who expect everyone else to do the wrok for them. They don't mind retaking the class cause daddy will pay for it.