Monday, May 4, 2009

Group Project

Ever since I can remember I've despised group projects. Even at this level of schooling, it still remains to be a problem. We have a presentation to do for my Acocunting class that has to be 10-15 minutes. It was given to us about three weeks ago, but you know how people are when they feel they have all the time in the world to get the ball rolling.

Well as time approached we felt it neccessary to get the plans together. Our first scheduled meeting was an indicator to me that this group project would be no different from the others, drama. Out of four of us, only myself and another lady showed for the meeting. After about 45mins, my classmate called the other two members. One lady explained that she forgot and she was on her way while the other didn't even answer the call.

In the meantime as we waited for the third member to arrive, the two of us went over ideas and got our ideas together. The lady who "forgot" finally showed up and then had the nerve to want to offer her opinions, thus making the meeting even longer than it should have already been.

Since the presentation needed to last an entire 15mins, I suggested we do a small skit, show a video clip and do a power point presentation. Well the late member decided that too many different things would make the project muddled. My thing was, better to have a lot of different approaches to keep it interesting and actually make the time limit than to not have enough information.

The timely member and I had decided that she would type the paper and that I would bring the movie clip in, along with doing the powerpoint presentation. Again, the late-comer had a problem with this and rather than saying so, I read her facial expression and asked her if she had a problem. This is when she stated that she wanted to do the powerpoint. I asked her if she was sure because I had already planned to do it. She reiterated how she really wanted that portion of the work. So I then proceeded to ask her when she'd have it done so that we could all review it and divide who reads what, since all members have to read. She tells me that she'll have it by 11am the next morning.

So 11am comes and goes and no email. She finally ends up sending it later on in the evening. Since the nixed the skit idea, we decided that there should be 20slides, 5 per person. Do you know that the slides she sent only totaled 7! Out of that 7 only 3 of the pages were completed and the other 4 were just titles. This was Thursday and no one has heard from her since. Our presentation is tonight and I am at a loss on what to do at this point. I woke up a couple times during the night thinking about an alternative. If I don't hear from her by lunch, I am planning to put together something myself, even though we gave her all the information for the slides.

I HATE GROUP PROJECTS!

11 comments:

Young woman on a journey said...

omg. i would be so pissed! good luck though! i hope it works out.

Miss.Stefanie said...

Yeah I would've been pissed.I hate group projects, Im more of a great independent worker. Always have been. Therefore no conflicting ideas, no putting up with people.GOOD LOOK MAMAS!

Trish said...

Young woman-Thanks, we're gonna need it!

Stef-I am VERY pissed. I just hope I can keep my composure tonight in class.

Nina said...

triflin'!

good luck, hopefully, its not lame

I.M.O.W and The City said...

i know what you mean..
its like being forced to rely on other ppl..
good luck anywway..
p.m*

Trish said...

Nina-I wanted to knock her out last night. It took everything in me to keep it together. She only had 6 slides last night. We ended up getting fill credit, no thanks to her dumb tail.

IMOW-Thanks for stopping by. I totally agree with you, I don't like relying on people I do know let alone complete strangers who don't care about me or my grade.

Anonymous said...

Honestly I don't understand what group projects are supposed to teach you. How to pick up the slack for co-workers who don't care enough about their job and colleagues to contribute?

Trish said...

Buttahfly-I guess its basically to teach people how to cover their own a**. I say that because after all these years of being an adult, it still just doesn't make sense.

Serenity3-0 said...

I have a team that I have to work with all semester. What we basically do is meet the monday of the week over a chat session and assign parts. We have a deadline that gives us sufficent time to know if the work is up to par and on time. If its not, we will come up with a plan b, but we will notify the instructor that said group member is not pariticpating and they will get an F.. LOL!

CocaColaCutie said...

I've always hated group projects! I'm glad you ended up getting full credit though.

Trish said...

Serenity-I've been in that position too and the people have the nerve to be mad when you don't include their names on the finished product.

Cola Cutie-Thanks! Monday is the final and then I won't have to deal with those people any more.