By Katerina Mansour, Staff Writer

Published in print Apr. 1, 2015

We’ve all experienced it: group work. This idea in which you are forced to work with your peers in order to produce something academic in one of your classes. It could be a presentation, a paper, a report, and so on. It is a phenomenon I only first encountered when I moved to the United States. So, what’s the problem with group work? You’re getting closer to your fellow classmates, possibly learning new things, making new friends, it sounds awesome! Well, not so much. Group work is a great reminder that not everyone has the same priorities as you. You’ll come across certain classic individuals when immersed in group work.

1. The Slacker.

Chances are you’ve had to deal with the slacker. The slacker doesn’t care about whether or not you guys get work done and receive a good grade. In fact, the slacker is going to sit around and do nothing while making it very clear that this is not important to him/her. The slacker is an intimidating creature. You might want to approach yours carefully, as things might get ugly very quickly.

The only thing you can do is pray you only have one of them in your group, or that you might be able to convert the slacker to your ways.

2. The Lost Soul

You’ll frequently come across people in assigned groups that simply have no idea what is going on. They don’t know the material, they don’t know deadlines, they don’t understand assignments. No matter how much they seemingly try to be involved, they’re simply lost souls within this tragic group work voyage.

3. The Leader

Thank goodness there tends to be at least one leader within each group. It’s great for the group, but probably not that great for the leader. The leader is prepared to do anything possible in order to get things going within the group. They will assign work, remind people of deadlines, check in on group mates, and possibly do all the work if necessary. The leader may or may not be nice about it.

The leader may or may not give any slacker or lost soul a poor peer review if given the chance. In cases where there might be multiple leaders fights may occur over the right way to do things. These fights might actually end up rendering what could have been a great collaboration into a complete disaster.

4. The Wannabe

Once in a while you might come across a group member attempting to lead and ultimately giving up entirely. This is the wannabe. The wannabe truly wants to lead everyone to success.

However, the wannabe often lacks the ability to prioritize and organize and thus eventually quits altogether. If you’re the leader in the group, you might want to boost the wannabe’s morale so you don’t find yourself completely alone.

Of course, this is satirical. However, I know that many of you will recognize yourself and or others  within one or more of these categories and descriptions.

The problem itself isn’t with students in my opinion, but with the concept as a whole. Group work is often claimed as being a method to prepare us for the workforce and the “real world.” However, I’d like to point out that both claims are ultimately bogus.

In the real world you’re responsible for your own actions, and in the majority of cases your evaluations will be made on your individual contributions.

If your colleagues completely mess something up, that will be reflected on them, not you. If you’re equals working on a project together, you’re not going to get in trouble for what they did or did not do (though fixing their mistakes could earn you bonus points). Of course, it depends on what career you pursue. In some cases, you might just have to relive the nightmare of group work.

Others claim group work is simply a good exercise in order to promote camaraderie in the classroom. I’d tend to claim this is also bogus being that group work leads to more frustration than friendship from what I’ve witnessed and experienced. Others more boldly claim it is simply because professors are too lazy to grade X amount of assignments.

This explanation makes more sense. Perhaps “laziness” shouldn’t be the term assigned but rather “incapable.” After all, not every professor has a TA, and those who don’t probably don’t have enough time to grade +100 lab reports every week for example. However, despite this being a rather legitimate explanation, it is never given to students. I’d personally rather professors be honest about their constraints instead of claiming that they’re actually doing this “for our own good.” Ultimately, I think all graded group work should be removed from all classrooms if it does not offer the option for an individual to be graded on a individual basis if they find themselves incapable of working with their group mates. It seems only fair, yet many professors refuse to do so.