Group project rant

Ooooohhhh the dreaded group project. Know that feeling. So I have to vent. Sorry so long!

In undergrad I had to do a project with my best friend and some random classmate. Well....talk about social loafing...my best friend decided that drinking and football games were more important than our project and let me to do all the work. Hmmpf...I was fuming when she got an A- and I got a B+ in the class..what made me fuming was that we had alll the same grades on both midterms and I got a higher grade on my paper...so it must have come down to the peer eval's about the project..like I said before hmmpf...

In grad school, recently we had to give a presentation on arthritis. There were three of us. Well my friend and I did all the research and put together the entire powerpoint. We tried for WEEKS, not days, weeks, to get our other group member to meet with us.

He lied and said he tried to call us and couldnt get ahold of us..hmmm..seeing as though my cell phone NEVER shuts off and has caller id, as well as my friends phone, I dont think he ever called...he could have emailed or set up something in class...we tried and he always said he was too busy. He suggested that we just email him our work and he would just add his on...or he wanted to do our group project over the phone!!! Well...we didnt want to do that, my friend and I wanted to meet...well he kept pushing it off until the day of the presentation..I was fuming!!!

I got kind of mad and told him he was meeting us at lunch, no excuses...well he said he would and he didn't, he went home (didnt bother telling us he was leaving and wasnt going to meet us) and didnt even show up until the middle of the class our presentation was in (walks in while the presentations are going on)!!

The best part of this story was that this person told my friend and I that we couldn't take up much of our 9 minute limit bc he had a lot to say. Keeping in mind we had no idea what he was going to say, even on the day of the speech, we left him 4 minutes....mind you, his part of the presentation was to lecture on rheumatoid arthritis....want to know what he talked about for 3 out of 4 minutes??? A rabid dog!!! It had no bearing what so ever to rheumatoid arthritis..my classmates later told me that the look on my face was priceless while he was lecturing....This is what he wanted 4 minutes for???? I dont even think he planned a speech at all...sigh....My friend and I ended up getting the full points but as for him, well who knows!!!

Thanks for letting me vent. I hate group projects. I like teamwork when everyone pulls their weight and contributes.

Ooooohhhh the dreaded group project. Know that feeling.

...want to know what he talked about for 3 out of 4 minutes??? A rabid dog!!! It had no bearing what so ever to rheumatoid arthritis.

OMG, ELKMNin06, a rabbid dog! LOL

OMG, ELKMNin06, a rabbid dog! LOL

yeah, no kidding, thats what I thought. "Once, when I lived in Africa, I had a dog...it was rabid...the rabies took control of its body, kind of like rheumatoid arthritis does...

OMG.

Yet another group - we all got the same grade no matter who did what according to the grade on the project.

I had ones of those in nursing school, luckily i was in a group at the time where everyone pulled their weight.

And since that's not the case this time, i didn't want that kind of grading, it's not a fair opportunity.

The prof. tonight stated "It's rather annoying when 4 able-bodied people are all riding in a canoe and only 2 of those people are paddling, with the other 2 have zero intention of even picking up an oar at anytime. If you're not paddling, don't expect to get to the shore of points. But the ones that are paddling will not sink." My thoughts exactly.

Marie,

:yelclap: :yelclap: :yelclap: :yelclap:

I'm in the same situation right now. In fact, I leave to give a presentation on a project in an hour. Two of us did the bulk of the work, another was lost --but never asked for help even though it was offered, and the final student didn't do a darn thing.

We will all give a portion of the presentation. We also have to hand in a portfolio of our work. The portfolio is a solid A, and three of us can speak intelligently on the subject for the presentation (the other portion of our grade). If the slacker falls on her face during her portion of the presentation, so be it. The rest of us have too much work in other classes to "rescue" her when she doesn't help herself.

Daytonite is right in that you can't control other people, but I agree with you that doing his/her work isn't the answer. I applaud you for standing by your convictions.

Good for you!!

*console*

Group projects are good in theory but in practice, they usually stink. I cringe when I find out I have to participate in one. I cringe twice when it is a group assigned by the teacher and not a group I can select on my own (well, the latter can be just as bad if it is early in the semester and you don't know who the slackers are yet lol).

I hope it works out for you - it's frustrating to feel extra pressure to pick up the slack of others. I only hope the grades reflect the effort - I like it when teachers allow the students to anonymously jot down who did what and rate or critique the other group members.

Goodluck and hang in there. :)

Question: If you and a CNA are the only nurses around and a patient is lying in a soiled bed that really needs to be cleaned up and the CNA, your team member, is either refusing to do it or skips off to take a break would you ignore this team project too? You have to do your tasks in order of importance, don't you think? I think my own grade in a class comes before seeing to it that another student gets "what's coming to them".

Yo Marie,

You go Girl ! :yelclap: Where were you when I was in school !

Could have used your passion !

Bye the way, what does "taking my turn at the sin wagon mean" ?

Question: If you and a CNA are the only nurses around and a patient is lying in a soiled bed that really needs to be cleaned up and the CNA, your team member, is either refusing to do it or skips off to take a break would you ignore this team project too? You have to do your tasks in order of importance, don't you think? I think my own grade in a class comes before seeing to it that another student gets "what's coming to them".

First off, you're comparing apples to oranges, two different scenarios.

No, the pt. would not lie there like that, i'd take care of that. And certainly, that person that skips off like that on a regular basis, hey'd find themselves w/o a job.

taking my turn at the sin wagon mean

It's from a Dixie Chicks' song.

Question: If you and a CNA are the only nurses around and a patient is lying in a soiled bed that really needs to be cleaned up and the CNA, your team member, is either refusing to do it or skips off to take a break would you ignore this team project too? You have to do your tasks in order of importance, don't you think? I think my own grade in a class comes before seeing to it that another student gets "what's coming to them".

Of course you would take care of the patient. But to follow through with your line of thinking, would you then repeatedly do your job and the CNA's for every shift that you work together? Would you not at some point say "enough" and report the CNA's behavior? If a team is composed to take the best care of the patient, and one team member "skips off", and this happens repeatedly, isn't it your responcibility to ensure that the patient receives the two able-bodied medical staff they deserve to care for them?

Of course you would take care of the patient. But to follow through with your line of thinking, would you then repeatedly do your job and the CNA's for every shift that you work together? Would you not at some point say "enough" and report the CNA's behavior? If a team is composed to take the best care of the patient, and one team member "skips off", and this happens repeatedly, isn't it your responcibility to ensure that the patient receives the two able-bodied medical staff they deserve to care for them?

The point I am making is that as nurses we have to work as a group all the time. There are always going to be those who either don't work up to standard or who goof off and don't do what they are supposed to. One of the things school should be opening a person's eyes to is to look for ways to resolve these issues. No, you don't let a worker you supervise get away with sticking their job on you all the time. However, read some of the new nurses who post the problems they are having with CNAs expecting them to help them all the time. These poor things haven't learned how to deal with employees they supervise. As licensed nurses we have to learn what to do about someone who won't participate in the team or pull their weight. Can anyone doubt that this happens daily in hospitals, nursing homes and clinics? Sometimes we have the authority to take care of the problem and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we're the leader and sometimes we're the follower. Each is a role we must learn. In life we have to learn to deal with that. A team member who "skips off" repeatedly is no different from someone in a group project who never shows up for meetings to get the project finished. The buck stops somewhere. Someday it is going to be one of the people who was willing to work on the group project who is going to be a leader where the buck stops at her, and how is she going to deal with it? It just seems that to sit back and let a project go to the dogs because two people are not pulling their weight is a defeatist attitude. First of all, in a passive way, the student is also refusing to do the assignment, so is missing out on the factual information they were suppose to learn. It's also incredible childish. It's like saying, "I'm not playing because she won't play with me, so there!" Second, the student is not thinking and is failing to see how this problem has a cross-over application to nursing. There is a great deal of learning that goes on across many levels when a person is in college. It is not cut and dry. If people don't take advantage of those learning opportunities presented to them they are wasting their tuition and are being incredible hard-headed, stubborn and failing to change.