Throughout the university experience, group work is nearly inevitable. Professors often promote this collaborative setting as a highly beneficial opportunity, telling us that “in the real world,” we’ll need to know how to work with others in a professional setting. We’re told that group projects help us gain critical life skills like communication, task-sharing for equal workloads, compromise, and so on. From my own experience—where I’ve had a group project in nearly every course of my undergrad—I’ve never felt that these projects were where I gained those aforementioned skills. Frankly, I learned these skills every time my brother and I had a stereotypical sibling interaction. Communicating with others? If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have had a ride home from school. Sharing tasks? You bet one of us washed, and the other dried the dishes. Compromise? That was every time our parents let us choose the restaurant for dinner. However, I have found that I’ve gained many unexpected life skills from group projects.
Before I dive into the topic, it’s important to note that when I get to choose groups with friends, it’s a peaceful and easy experience. I always know they’ll do their work, that their quality will meet standards, and—most importantly—I know where they live (good luck ignoring my messages!). Then there are the other projects where my professor decides the groups. Spoiler alert: this is the root cause of those unexpected skills I mentioned.
It’s extremely common in group projects to have at least one person whose sole goal is to simply pass the course. Because of this, they’re well-versed in doing the bare minimum to get by. As someone who aims for… well, anything but that, it’s tough not to take the reins and do the work myself. Truthfully, during my first year, I often did a lot of the work myself. However, now in my last year of university, I’ve learned how to manage a team to ensure everyone contributes in some capacity. But beware of weaponized incompetence. Did they technically do their part? Yes. Does it align with anything in the rubric or have proper spelling and grammar? Not at all. Often, they’ll submit subpar work expecting you to fix it. This reminds me of managing children: they try to get out of work by pretending they don’t know how to do it. Providing clear instructions usually invalidates this excuse, and if not, a threat to “tattle” on them can work wonders on both kids and university students alike.
When it comes to subpar work, sometimes it’s not about weaponized incompetence; sometimes, they’re just genuinely forgetful or not detail-oriented. I typically tend to take on the role of team manager, so I end up creating detailed schedules, task lists, and breakdowns of expectations. Yet no matter how much detail I send, there’s always a group member asking questions I’ve already answered in my messages. It’s easy to snap or get frustrated, but with this happening time and time again, I’ve seen an improvement in my patience. Getting mad at group members isn’t productive, doesn’t help anyone, and just hurts team morale.
Lastly, there’s time management—not to be confused with the time management professors usually talk about, but rather the skill of planning for failure. When you bring together individuals with varying standards of work, it’s likely that some sections may need revision or rework. Rarely does a group project come together smoothly with everyone pasting their portions in for a perfect final submission. Because of this, I allocate time to apply these corrections. I also plan for delays; you have to assume that most people are poor planners. I always get a last-minute text about a Wi-Fi outage, a family emergency, or some other excuse for late work. Rather than facing a last-minute scramble or “fire drill” as I like to call it,before the 11:59 p.m. due date, I set an internal deadline for my group a day or two before the actual due date. This way, if something is late, we still have time to address it.
In the end, my professors were correct that participating in group work leads to valuable life skills—but they’re far from the ones typically advertised. I’m sure these unexpected skills will be beneficial and eventually contribute to a successful career path. For now, though, they’re just part of the journey to maintaining my status as an “academic weapon.”