Opinion: Getting to work with your friends on slideshows and projects may have been ideal in high school. But in college, group projects are a complete and utter nuisance that I don’t want to do.
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My feelings on group projects used to be relatively neutral. I had good experiences with friends working on science projects at dining room tables, and I had, let’s say, “less good experiences” doing entire projects myself when my teammates bailed. Overall though, I was indifferent. I did the work I was assigned, and when it was over I didn’t think about it again.
Now that I have reached college, there is no more neutrality. I despise group projects.
This term I have two group projects as finals, each in a class with 200 or more students. While these group projects may save the professors and GEs from having to grade 200 papers, organizing students into groups may actually be more difficult than it’s worth.
In my Gender, Media and Diversity class, one of our GEs was tasked with organizing students into groups of six to seven students. This seems like a fairly straightforward task if you randomly place students into groups.
However, students were also given the option to request certain friends to be in their groups. This meant the GE had to go back and reorganize students into new groups to meet everyone’s desires.
Then, when all of the groups were supposed to meet in class a few weeks back, half of the students were on Zoom and half of the students were in-person. This caused the GE to, once again, reform the groups to match the students in class with other students in class and do the same process for students online.
Our GE has had the unfortunate duty of reorganizing students into groups three times, with an upcoming fourth time for students who are not currently contributing. A once-simple concept has turned into seven weeks of chaos.
Group projects are difficult to organize on all sides though. In trying to schedule a time for everyone in my group to meet and work on our project, we have been unable to find a single time in which everyone is able to attend.
Even though it makes working on our project harder and less coordinated, I don’t place blame on anybody for having a life outside of this one class. But I believe that professors sometimes fail to recognize that students are often way too over-scheduled.
Students are expected to work on coursework for 30 hours per undergraduate credit. This means an average undergraduate student, enrolled in 16 credits does 480 hours of class work each term. With each class requiring roughly 8-10 hours of work per week, students are looking at nearly 40 hours of classwork alone.
Combine those weekly 40 hours of schoolwork with students’ part- or full-time jobs, as 43% of full-time students were employed in 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Working anywhere from 10-40 additional hours weekly leaves students little time to get the correct amount of sleep, eat, commute and actually enjoy the social aspect of college.
I respect professors for all that they do to try to make complicated — and sometimes disinteresting — material enjoyable and comprehensible. However, the long-used method of group projects has to go for the sake of students and GEs.
In the real, professional world, even when group projects are necessary, each of the members involved has a financial interest. If a member doesn’t contribute equally, or do a good job, they risk losing their job. But in college, the students who have a “C’s get degrees” mentality don’t have this same interest. They won’t get fired from classes or the university; they’ll hope they get a passing grade and move on.
Group projects are effective at times, but college is not one of those. So, it’s time we recognize this fact and get rid of group projects once and for all.
