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Group Projects in University Suck

R

RbSX

Diamond Member
Some people are fucking useless. Especially the kind that likes to boss other people around, and redefine other people's roles, spring things on them, go behind your back to the professor, and then get pissed off when stuff isn't done to their satisfaction forgetting that you never told that person (me) that you wanted me to do said tasks.

Yes, working professionals who come back to finish your degrees and think you're better than everyone else, I am fucking talking to you.

Thank fvcking god I recorded our most recent group meetings on my iPhone, karma is a bitch when I let the prof listen to it.

On the other hand, I am now groupless, I'd rather take a gun shot than work with them again. The end of this semester just got REALLY interesting.
 
mmntech said:
There's always at least one person who does nothing.
Click to expand...

In this case, I might have been that person. I just got sick of dealing with my group mates. The scope of my responsibility and the project on the whole was constantly in flux, and my role was being redefined by my group mates so many times that I just got sick of it.

Even according to our project schedule, which outlined each of our responsibilities, they are blaming me for stuff they even stated wasn't my job. I just got sick and tired of it.

Worst of all, on Wednesday they were griping I didn't have something done, when I spent the 5 previous days emailing them trying to obtain information necessary for me to write my part of the report.

They were fucking dismissive egotists too. Jerks.
 
im doing a group project right now for a project management class....im just offering to do the work required in ms project 2010, they can dick around with whatever else they like.
 
I hated group projects.

I got to the point where I didn't rely on anyone to do their work...and instead, completed the entire project on my own. If they finally came through, I'd work with them to meld their work into my project...or my work into their project...but I never let my grade depend on the work of others.
When I ended up with a slacker...or group of slackers, I'd simply let the professor know that I what I was going to do and why. MOST were OK with that...a couple insisted that I try to make the group work together...to which I'd reply, "When I get a supervisory title and pay, I'll worry about making others do their work. Until then, all I can do is to do MY work to the best of my ability."
 
Group projects have been ok with me, for the most part. A freshman research and presentation project was near fail. He bought the poster board (my Miata can not fit one) and also took the liberty of making the handouts (where he just copy/pasted a random context-missing paragraph from the contents of my poster and added a few words of his own, all of which were misspelled) but otherwise, fucking worthless.
 
xSauronx said:
im doing a group project right now for a project management class....im just offering to do the work required in ms project 2010, they can dick around with whatever else they like.
Click to expand...

That was my role in last group project.
My biggest issue that brought down my part was lack of communication from everyone else on estimated amount of time it would take to complete tasks.
 
I like stories so here's my most infamous group project horror story. Back when I was in college, I took a documentary production course. Basically, we were given free reign to do what we wanted. Just progress reports and the final project. So it's me and four girls. So we're bouncing around ideas for what to film. One Indian girl suggests, strongly, that we do something on arranged marriage. Won't shut up about it, so we bite. So we have two camera people, a producer/director, writer, and this girl who pressured us to do this topic. Her role? She's one of the subjects for the film. No wonder why she wanted it so badly.

Problems start off when she keeps giving excuses why she can't show up for shoots. Then the day comes to film her segment. She was supposed to ask her uncle permission to shoot at their house. Three of us live 30-45min away from there. Meet up, she tells us her uncle said no. So we drive another 30min back to my house and do the shoot. Gives us her sob story of family life, goes on about how wonderful her arranged husband to be is. Fine, we finish. I take her home, because I'm awesome. Mainly because my friend needed to get her car.

So we finally finish. She never shows up to edit. We give her smaller and smaller tasks. Try talking to her, but she want listen. We ask her to bring in a picture of her fiance, she conveniently forgets. We finally tell the teacher. I eventually get it literally at zero hour. Boom, into the film, DVD burned, done. Teacher chastises her. Film turns out great. We're happy with the end results.

Semester two rolls around. The doc class is in two parts with the second being elective. First day, it's just the four of us from the marriage doc group. We're thankful not to see you know who, then guess who strolls in halfway through the first class. She has to be in our group. Teacher understands our problem though. We're doing a travel doc this time. We ask her if she wants to come. She says her family won't allow it. Fine, the car only seats four comfortably. We pressure her to contribute financially, which she actually does, but nothing else. Doesn't even help with the editing. We had given up on her by that point. Film turned out well. I remember putting something cheeky in the credits as "financial contributor" or something.

By that point, none of the other students and faculty liked her. Everyone had the same issues. I'm pretty sure she flunked the program.

Here's where it gets funny. By the end of the year, we discover her "fiance's" picture was actually a Bollywood actor. Holes in her life's sob story, which she'd tell to everyone, began to get bigger. We suspect it never happened. One of my friends suspected she was just using the program as a springboard to get her family into Canada. So it didn't matter if she succeeded or not.

This girl actually came into my work last year to rent a car, after smashing hers. Too bad I wasn't there. I'd get fired for laughing at a customer, but it would be worth it. 😛
 
mmntech said:
There's always at least one person who does nothing.
Click to expand...

YEP, this. our team busted ass to get a project done, got a B overall because some D-bag didn't pull his weight. Prof said we all did excelent and would have gotten an A, but this guy bombed us
 
TecHNooB said:
you actually sound like the weak link based on your own description. are you typically an A/B student?
Click to expand...

Yes I am, and in this case there is a chance that I was the weak link. Like I said, their expectations of my role and what I was supposed to do constantly kept changing.

My original aspect of the project was research, but basically in the end they whittled down my role into.. nothing.

The class is an information technology class, and as a part of our major project we were to research a business, and find a piece of software that could improve the efficiency of the company. We postulated that a proper POS system with a scheduling and inventory module, in addition to a table side electronic serving app would allow the restaurant that we were examining to reduce costs.

As time went on (as recently as Monday night) there was a dispute as to the scope of our project.

My part of the project was to 1. create a decision criteria 2. research possible solutions and 3. research possible vendors.

(and analyse which would be best)

As time went on I searched for 3 different pieces of software, however, only one of them had a mobile app. As a result, my group members thought that we should not include the ones that didn't have one as a part of our analysis, and this is where the divide started.

Also, the research that I would do on each piece of software depended on the decision criteria, something that took them 4-5 days to even respond to my multiple emails, it was only on Monday that they finally got back to me.

In my experience, I need to qualify why the piece of software I am nominating is the best. I can't simply say 'just trust me' -- instead, I present 2-3 options, and based upon the decision criteria nominate one of the options.

Rather than listen to me, my group basically told me that I was wasting my time, being stupid, and they wouldn't listen to me, or accept my input, or the value of my experience. I used to work as an IT Manager, part of my job was to analyse and recommend different software for different functions.

In the end, my partners said, don't bother with the other 3 options, just analyse the one with the mobile app, which made no sense to me. How can you make a recommendation without anything to contrast it with?

In the end it was a 2v1 scenario, my other groupmates were friends, and they clearly worked on the same wavelength, that I didn't share. My part of the project was constantly being adjusted, and my responsibilities were constantly being changed, but not by me.

It was an awful situation. Fundamentally we just disagreed on how things should be done, and I hated constantly being bossed around by people that thought they were better than me. It was insulting. Furthermore, I had Salmonella poisoning for a significant portion of October, which didn't help things.

There were other things, such as arranging for a group meeting, and then them not emailing me where or when until 30 minutes before the meeting was to start, and getting pissed off when I was late. The fact is, they were jerks, and I've never encountered this situation before.
 
Last edited:
RbSX said:
Thank fvcking god I recorded our most recent group meetings on my iPhone, karma is a bitch when I let the prof listen to it.
Click to expand...
Quite possibly illegal. I strongly recommend against this course of action. Moreover, if a student came to me with audio recordings of a group-setting project thinking he was playing detective I would probably tell him to either deal with it like a grown-up or go through proper channels.
 
RbSX said:
Yes I am, and in this case there is a chance that I was the weak link. Like I said, their expectations of my role and what I was supposed to do constantly kept changing.

My original aspect of the project was research, but basically in the end they whittled down my role into.. nothing.

The class is an information technology class, and as a part of our major project we were to research a business, and find a piece of software that could improve the efficiency of the company. We postulated that a proper POS system with a scheduling and inventory module, in addition to a table side electronic serving app would allow the restaurant that we were examining to reduce costs.

As time went on (as recently as Monday night) there was a dispute as to the scope of our project.

My part of the project was to 1. create a decision criteria 2. research possible solutions and 3. research possible vendors.

(and analyse which would be best)

As time went on I searched for 3 different pieces of software, however, only one of them had a mobile app. As a result, my group members thought that we should not include the ones that didn't have one as a part of our analysis, and this is where the divide started.

Also, the research that I would do on each piece of software depended on the decision criteria, something that took them 4-5 days to even respond to my multiple emails, it was only on Monday that they finally got back to me.

In my experience, I need to qualify why the piece of software I am nominating is the best. I can't simply say 'just trust me' -- instead, I present 2-3 options, and based upon the decision criteria nominate one of the options.

Rather than listen to me, my group basically told me that I was wasting my time, being stupid, and they wouldn't listen to me, or accept my input, or the value of my experience. I used to work as an IT Manager, part of my job was to analyse and recommend different software for different functions.

In the end, my partners said, don't bother with the other 3 options, just analyse the one with the mobile app, which made no sense to me. How can you make a recommendation without anything to contrast it with?

In the end it was a 2v1 scenario, my other groupmates were friends, and they clearly worked on the same wavelength, that I didn't share. My part of the project was constantly being adjusted, and my responsibilities were constantly being changed, but not by me.

It was an awful situation. Fundamentally we just disagreed on how things should be done, and I hated constantly being bossed around by people that thought they were better than me. It was insulting. Furthermore, I had Salmonella poisoning for a significant portion of October, which didn't help things.

There were other things, such as arranging for a group meeting, and then them not emailing me where or when until 30 minutes before the meeting was to start, and getting pissed off when I was late. The fact is, they were jerks, and I've never encountered this situation before.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth based on what you wrote you were obviously correct. Unless mobility is an essential requirement of the software it's quite silly to reject others that lack it. Perhaps your teammates are too OMG-mobile and don't realize that the world doesn't always revolve around that 😀
 
Doppel said:
Quite possibly illegal. I strongly recommend against this course of action. Moreover, if a student came to me with audio recordings of a group-setting project thinking he was playing detective I would probably tell him to either deal with it like a grown-up or go through proper channels.
Click to expand...

I made no attempt to hide it, they knew, I have a learning disability so I record my meetings and classes so that I can review them later and take notes from them.
 
Doppel said:
For what it's worth based on what you wrote you were obviously correct. Unless mobility is an essential requirement of the software it's quite silly to reject others that lack it. Perhaps your teammates are too OMG-mobile and don't realize that the world doesn't always revolve around that 😀
Click to expand...

Look, I have no doubt that the data would have supported their conclusion as well, but there was a serious dispute regarding the supporting of that fact. It really took the wind out of my sails, and I seriously felt marginalized.

This is the first time that I have ever had to deal with something like this, I feel like I am dealing with a crazy exgirlfriend who wants to blame me for shit they did wrong.
 
shortylickens said:
IN college.
In THE university.

God I just need to slap some people!
Click to expand...

Lexicon in Australia, Europe, and England is "in University" or "at University".

In college, in the college, or at college is all correct.

Perhaps you should return to university.
 
Pulsar said:
Lexicon in Australia, Europe, and England is "in University" or "at University".

In college, in the college, or at college is all correct.

Perhaps you should return to university.
Click to expand...
Agree. To preface it with "the", hints that there is either only one university or that we already know to which one he refers.
 
I just picked nice, co-operative people who wouldn't rock the boat for my group projects.
If they could/wanted to help, great. If not, I was happy as long as they stayed the f*ck out of the way.
 
I had 2 group projects in the past year, one I asked to do it on my own (assload of work for 10&#37😉, and the other I joined up with one person I barely knew and 2 that got put into my group.

Being a masters program with a 70% passing grade, I just chose to oversee practically everything. There were 5 assignments, I did the majority of 3 of them, and checked the last 2. I'd like to think I wasn't a control-freak since 2 of my group were also grad students, and they wanted to help. One didn't have full control of English though - he was reasonable, but not fully fluent. The last 1 was an undergrad, always skipped class, and rarely answered her e-mail. We let her write the executive summary (assignments didn't ask for one)... I didn't plan on seeing her after the class ended, so f*ck inclusiveness or talking to a professor.

I've realized that most people are pussies - they do not want to take charge or the responsibility. If you're capable, and take charge from the start, the only one who will contest that is an(other) ego-tripping, narcissistic asshat.
 
Imp said:
I had 2 group projects in the past year, one I asked to do it on my own (assload of work for 10%), and the other I joined up with one person I barely knew and 2 that got put into my group.

Being a masters program with a 70% passing grade, I just chose to oversee practically everything. There were 5 assignments, I did the majority of 3 of them, and checked the last 2. I'd like to think I wasn't a control-freak since 2 of my group were also grad students, and they wanted to help. One didn't have full control of English though - he was reasonable, but not fully fluent. The last 1 was an undergrad, always skipped class, and rarely answered her e-mail. We let her write the executive summary (assignments didn't ask for one)... I didn't plan on seeing her after the class ended, so f*ck inclusiveness or talking to a professor.

I've realized that most people are pussies - they do not want to take charge or the responsibility. If you're capable, and take charge from the start, the only one who will contest that is an(other) ego-tripping, narcissistic asshat.
Click to expand...

Yeah, missed (some) class because I was sick with Salmonella, none the less I chose a part that I was good at and knew I could achieve it. Yet, these sons of bitches kept getting in my way.

If you are going to assign me a part, do me a favour, stop fucking with it.
 
RbSX said:
Yeah, missed (some) class because I was sick with Salmonella, none the less I chose a part that I was good at and knew I could achieve it. Yet, these sons of bitches kept getting in my way.

If you are going to assign me a part, do me a favour, stop fucking with it.
Click to expand...

It's usually the loudmouths and control freaks that can't lead that do it just because of their nature. I've been in more than my fairshare of shitty groups. I got assigned to one group once at a mandatory university, for credit camp. The self-imposed leader was controlling, critical, had a temper, and pissed the rest of us off.

Just have to bite the bullet sometimes, take over, or change groups. Or, if your workplace is unionized like mine, hide the shitty people in a corner, and give their work to the good people whom then become resentful.
 
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