Group projects… teamwork… depending on other students for your grade… oh the joy!
Every student hits the dreaded point in the school year where you have to be placed into a team in order to complete a project that will affect your grade. The class groans and the lecturer always says the same thing “Team work is important for the real world!” But the question is, how do you really survive working in a team?
As a publishing student, I get this dreaded assignment every year. But as I reach the end of each one, I can’t help but walk away with new knowledge (as much as my patience had been tested for the months prior to the due date) and as one eager to have a successful career in the industry, I have to make the most of it.
So to celebrate the joys of this time of the year, here are three things that I have learned when working in a team (a.k.a. my suggestions for survival):
1. You don’t have to like everyone. Yes that is a bit harsh but let’s be honest, we have all thought it before. You get assigned your group and you go through your head, “Okay so and so is nice so they should be okay… oh god so and so doesn’t seem very useful, I’ll have to pick up their slack…” Fun, right? But just give everyone a chance because chances are, someone isn’t a fan of you either. Work together, listen to each other, get the job done, and go out for a drink afterwards. (I suggest ‘Spoons because every uni student cares about the “reasonable cost” of a good drink.
2. Just get it done. Everyone is always going to have something else going on in their life – that’s just reality. But does that really mean that you all have to sit around stressing over someone’s slack? No. Complain about the person to your friend outside of class and move on with it. Talk to the other team members, work out who you can actually rely on, and split up the work. In the wise words of Shia Labeouf, taken from Nike, “Just do it!”
3. You can breathe at the end of it. The process will never be easy. Whether we are in high school, college, university, or a proper job, teamwork will always pop up and chances are your not-so-silent groan will never go away when hearing that word. But at the end of the day, you just have to push through it. Get the work done and be proud of it. Try your best with your team and cross you fingers that you won’t have to work with some of them ever again. Click the submit button and breathe. You did it. You may have cried and you may have overreacted a million times but once your project is submitted, that’s the end of it… until next time.
Cheers to all of us who are currently going through this stress-filled process and those who will be hit with it again in the future!
