Group project, the bane of my existence

When my children were little, the one thing that drove them to the point of insanity was group projects, Often the teacher paired them with students who are not good in  their studies. I always told my children that they simply have to accept the fact that they need to learn to get along with others who are not always like them. I remember Yaya single handedly doing a group project in grade 5 all by herself because no one in her group wanted to do it  properly and Yaya couldn’t bear to hand in a shoddy project..and the tears she shed ..I think I wrote a blog post about it.

And now, I face the same dilemma. All of my assignments that I have to do by myself, I got 7 ( highest GPA) but some of the courses require me to do group project and that is the main problem. I understand not everyone is going to be as driven as I am. But this is a masters degree and by now everyone should have learned  that if you are going to do something, do it well.

I am meant to do a group project on a WHO report..and I received a mail from one of my team member.. That she spent the past 3 days searching for the perfect picture for the report cover page. Another one then commented on how beautiful the picture is and how our project is different from everyone else’s  ( based on the cover page, not content) and that we surely will get the highest mark. Sadly, the content most of my team members have managed to get is copy and paste (change few words to avoid plagiarism) wiki…and somehow they think that is sufficient.

It reminded me of this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon

http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php?phrase=bats

There are a series of 6 comic strips and  you will understand what I mean when you get to the part with ‘ no marks for the professional clear folder’

And finally this is what I would like to place on the cover page..

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8 thoughts on “Group project, the bane of my existence

  1. The last bit made me smile. 🙂 We had group projects during graduation, and I usually ended up doing the work for the whole group. I didn’t mind because I felt it was an opportunity to learn. Things were fine until this happened in some other group and a girl bitterly complained to the teacher about how no-one helped her. The teacher now wanted to know the contribution of each member. We were penalized for not working as a group and made to redo the project. Your post brought back old memories. 🙂

  2. heheheh! I hear similar complaints from my daughter all the time. My job is try to get her not to take more than her share because the same guys seem to be put into groups for projects.

    • MS: Doing Spanish immersion helped Yaya tremendously as all the kids in her group were driven to do well and group work was a breeze.

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