Freebase Dali

The woes of not being useless in college. You have to put up with the 99 percent who are.

GOOD TRAINING FOR LIFE!

__________________

Engine

Occupy group assignments!
Seriously. Take the middle road, folks. Don't be the leader or the follower, just do your part, and your grade will be fine.

__________________

Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Odyshape

Yeah you're totally right Freebase. It actually in a lot of ways did push me to at least try to mediate and handle frustrations with other people especially in such a serious environment for me. Been a learning experience to say the least. I bet every group assignment after this one is going to seem like a breeze by comparison.

@Engine I honestly tried. But my group members simply could not produce adequate work. I was not rude to anyone in fact everyone was incredibly rude to everyone else and I was kind of stuck in a lot of it. Man am I glad this semester is almost over going to be the biggest relief.

Freebase Dali

You never can tell. Out of all the group school assignments I've had, group projects for work, being part of particular teams in the military, it's never the same between each scenario. There's always a different dynamic... you just have to figure out how you're going work with it.
Like Engine says, do your part, but also be flexible. If the group comes off as a bunch of flailing chickens with their heads cut off and no sense of direction, they might be the kind of people that need someone to take charge and assign tasks and methods. Alternatively, there might be a group with too many chiefs, as the saying goes. (that's usually the most difficult to manage, and can lead to a lot of resentment and uncooperative people).

Ultimately, you'll do fine in school. Hopefully your grade won't be representative of the output of the whole, but if it is, that's a situation where you'll want to make sure the group is organized and getting the job done, even if it means the smartest guy has extra work-load due to fixing everyone else's mistakes. If that's the case, and you're that guy, well at least you know they'll go along with what you say, as their grade depends on it too. Then you can take the reins and make sure the boat doesn't sink with everyone on it.

__________________

Odyshape

Thanks that is some good advice. I tried to be the guy giving direction and got the impression that I was doing well but I did get some what distracted along the way and kind of gave up some what. As much as it sucks I guess the dysfunction of the group is partly my fault. While I may not be the worst I did have opportunities to make things easier for myself. Hmm that is probably the real reason as to why I am upset about this situation. Its not so much the failure of others but my failure to make the best of a bad situation. If I knew I was doing the best I could I would probably approach this circumstance with pride rather than frustration.

Freebase Dali

To be fair, you can't really blame yourself. It's hard enough to control one's own state of affairs much less those of others. I wouldn't think of it in terms of controlling, though, but in terms of doing what you can to ensure the success of the group.
If you devote yourself to that, people will naturally see you as a leader, even when you're not trying to be, because they know the best chance of success is following the guy who seems to care about the outcome of the project, even if he doesn't have all the ideas to put towards it.

If you're still in the project, I wouldn't worry about feeling pride in it as it is. I'd worry about getting through the tough stuff now, and being proud of the result. It's going to be frustrating, no matter what. Pain now, glory later.

__________________

Odyshape

I guess it is hard to control the state of others but I know I have the ability to do so if I try. That is what I meant by the frustration business. I am sour because I wasn't exercising what to me is considered and adequate amount of effort. I have noticed taking some responsibility for the way things turn out and even for the way people treat you (being given bad work and having to listen to bitching and moaning about other group members for hours on end) 9 times out of 10 is worth doing even if that means accommodating the brain dead haha