how do you feel about group projects?

ssaarraahh · May 2, 2012

When I did group project in nursing school, we divided up what needed to be done and then set dates on when we should be 1/2 done and then almost done. We would decide on a leader of the group and then that person would be checking in on the other people in the group to make sure they are heading in the right direction and will have what needed to be done by the dates.

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · May 2, 2012

Hated group projects in college, for all the normal reasons and then some. (Have you ever had to sing "Jambalaya" in front of 40 people when you can't carry a tune in a bucket?!) But it was fantastic training for the world of work, where a group has to hang together, or most assuredly they will hang separately.

QuarterLife88, MSN, RN, NP · May 2, 2012

Hate 'em.

I work better alone when it comes to academics. That goes for studying as well. You'll never catch me in a study group. Group projects cause me extra stress worrying about the other members in my group, they waste time by having to meet up with said members outside of class, they cause friction whether you mean to butt heads with another person or not - there's always that one person in the group that you will not mesh with. At this point I just give in so we can move on even if I hate their ideas.

Working as a team in the clinical environment - fine, great even. In fact I love when my clinical group and I work as a real team. Group projects - die, projects, die!

allnurses Guide · May 2, 2012

I hated them because there was always one person would have a queen-mother freak-out that everyone else was going cause them to fail.

Everyone would be fine.

I remember one peach who chided the rest of us because we were going to use notes to prompt ourselves during our presentation.

She got really snotty and said, "Well! I'm not going to read from anything! That's stupid!".

She got up there, in front of the class, and made the biggest butt-hole out of herself.

The class couldn't follow her train of thought and stopped paying attention to her.

I could have cared less that her portion stunk.

I was just glad I wasn't the one who made a fool out of myself!

So, she was certain we all were going to ruin the presentation and made our lives heck for about a week, but, it turned out, we weren't the ones she needed to be worried about.

psu_213, BSN, RN · May 2, 2012

This is an inherent unfairness in group projects--as you describe, one person does not carry their weight in the group, yet the get the same grade as those who worked much harder. When I was in school, we had very few groups projects, and they were a relatively small percentage so it was not a big deal.

All that being said, you will find in nursing, some RNs do not carry their weight. Any opportunity for individuals to recognize the importance of teamwork can be valuable.

Mama_Cashew, ASN, RN · May 2, 2012

Any group project I have been a part of always contained at least one person who wouldn't carry their weight. Thankfully at the college I attended (for my non-nursing degrees) the instructor wanted us to fill out a sheet on how well the others in the group helped out. Depending on what we had to say would influence the grade. So if everyone said person A didn't help, their grade was reduced.

I remember one time we had a lady who was supposed to be writing the paper for our group. She would NEVER come to our meetings and when it came to crunch time she wanted us to email her everything and she would do it. Umm, NO! I took over her part and wrote the paper. We all let the instructor know she wasn't pulling her weight and when it came time to present he asked her so many questions it was obvious he was seeing if we were telling the truth. She couldn't answer anything.

I wish more instructors would take input from those in the group instead of giving one grade for everyone. It's not fair to have 5 people get the same grade if only 3 or 4 did the work!

LVN/RNBridge · May 2, 2012

Simple answer. Groups? No thanks! Personally- I work better in school, independently:-)

RLtinker, LPN · May 3, 2012

I don't like them. LOL

The only advantage is that the work can be split up, The bad part is that your grade is based on some elses work. For some reason they thought it might be a good idea to have us in teams of two for our Lab final. My partner made some serous errors related to drug administration. Dropped my grade from an A to a B.

jhunold · May 3, 2012

I haven't experienced the group dynamic in nursing school yet. I start nursing school this summer. But based on my experience with pre-reqs at the local CC group projects were the bane of my existence! Lucky for me I did not have many classes that assigned group projects. The one class that had a weekly group project assignment was pure hell. We had a little bit of everything -- the one who did not communicate with the group members until the last minute (this was an online class); the one who was a control freak and thought everyone was going to mess up the assignment (like we were all incompetent except her), the one whose feelings got hurt if we did not enthusiastically adopt each and every suggestion she made, the one who thought she was being disrespected by the younger members of the group, the one who did the bare minimum of work. And get this, we were told we would be down-graded if the group got dysfunctional, so despite all this we tried to hide the dysfunction from the instructor (didn't work, but he did not down-grade us after all). In fact, our group ended up with extra points for the quality of the projects we submitted. But all that drama was definitely not necessary. I was never so glad to complete a course!

That said, I am hoping that my fellow nursing students might be a little more similar in maturity and study habits, and perhaps group projects will not be so unpleasant. But I would still avoid them if I could.

I am not a fan of study groups either, but I could see myself working with a single study buddy if we had similar study habits. I like to get down to business and study. Skip the gossiping, complaining, and discussion of your social life. So far I have managed on my own quite well. I'm one of the quiet ones -- give me a book and a quiet room and I can happily study all day. It's not that I am anti-social, just very focused on the task at hand and I don't like to be distracted from my main goal. I don't learn well when people are yapping at me on off-topic stuff.

turnforthenurse, MSN, NP · May 3, 2012

I hated group projects because I felt like I always had at least one or two in my group who wouldn't carry their weight. And if someone does a mediocre job on their part, it affects the entire grade. I know the whole point of group work is to prepare you for the work world because nursing is a team effort, but so far my experience in the work world has been great. Nothing like those awful group projects in school

kgb0217 · May 3, 2012

I loathe group projects. This past semesters group project was such a NIGHTMARE. Two of the girls appointented themselves bosses of the project, picked our topic (which was wrong) and refused to listen to anyones input. When I told them they picked the wrong topic...they laughed at me and kept talking about the same topic until the teacher got involved. The project was so extremely ugly and I was utterly embarrased. My biggest issue was they didn't care if they did it right or not and had a scary inability to not READ. It drove me nuts and my grade I worked so hard for plummeted because we failed the project. The day we got together, the two of them set at the table and bossed everyone around. Luckily that is all over...at the expense of my grade and 9 others.