Group Project Failures

In high school when the teacher assigned a group project, most of the time they already knew who were the slackers of the class. Even though there are always problems with working with people it made it easier to deal with because at least you knew the work was going to get done. I am not saying that all group projects are not worth it; many group assignments have many advantages. For instances, if everything goes as planned, its less work on just one person; different ideals are brought forth; and there is a better chance of getting an A because more heads are better than one. But there are down falls in group work, and you do not get to hear about them in high school, but in large classes in college you have to be aware of Group Project Failures.

In large classes such as my economic 4 class, which as over 600 students, you do not get to interact with each other. And when you are assigned a project to work with seven different people things become very chaos. There are so many different schedules to work around, especially when everyone is in a different stage of college. Sometimes you want to get things done early, or have it done at a certain time. This is hard because you have to wait for other parts. Sometimes people are paired up with good and/or bad slackers. What I mean by good slackers, they are the students that are doing well in the class and the grade from the project would not have an effect on them. So they decide that they do not need to do the work. Bad slackers are the student that needs the grade but can care less about doing the work. These types of people put so much pressure on those that need the grade and is willing to do the work. They then have to work twice as hard, they have to pick up the work other are not doing.

I have had two economic classes so far, so I have experience this situation twice so far. In one class, I was switch out of so many groups because of the lack of team work. I was doing all the work myself because I was the student that needed the grade the most. And I had to understand that I can not rely on others because even though its team work it all for ones self. This is really stressful because this is not your only class, and you also have to complete other assignments. Because these projects are twenty percent of your grade, it seems to be the only thing you can focus on. Then you start to slack in other classes because you figure that the project is more important, has the greater affect. Large class projects have such a major affect on all of your school work, especially if you need a good grade in that class. I believe that group project causes the most stress for students.

That is the reason why I proposal that there should not be any projects in such large classes. As young adults, many of us did not develop good communication skills. And if a group can not communicate with one another, how can they complete a good project. Most people work better by themselves. I think that the department of general education should just add another exam in place of the project. This way what ever grade you get can only be on you and not because of others. It can also relieve the stress between group meetings and completing other assignments for other classes. The department also needs to think about the people that does all the work, but other still get the credit. When someone knows that they need the grade, I do not think the first thing on their mind is to have people removed from the group. They have other things to worry about, and as college students we try to avoid as much stress as possible.

Some people may say that dealing with stuff like this is apart of life. Its one of those things you just have to deal with. To know that nothing is perfect and everything has its ups and downs, you just have to be willing to go for the ride. I understand that there will be times you will have to pick up the extra work, because if you do not do it then you will just be a failure like the rest. But when one takes on the extra work, they slack in other subjects as I mentioned before. All human beings have limits on what they can take, and for college student I believe that our limits are lower than older adults. Not because we a still young, but because we are trying to finish school and that there is a lot more things that we have to deal with. So we try to take it one step at a time.

Word cited
http://Econ.la.psu.edu/~pgraf/econ4/

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