<p>I was just perusing Facebook and noticed a status saying "I just want to take people who don't try in school by their shirt collars and just scream at them!" </p>
<p>I thought that seemed rather extreme. Perhaps this would do better in the more-neurotic HSL forum, but I think it's up to you whether you try or not. Especially in college - you are paying, after all. It's your prerogative to do badly if you so choose.</p>
<p>Opinions?</p>
<p>I get upset with underachievers when you have to work on projects with them and they try to bring my grade down too. As far as their grades, if their grades suck, that’s their own problem and their fault, but I’m probably not gonna be too good of friends with them. Certain people on some group projects in high school just annoy me sooo much with how little they care about grades.</p>
<p>You could argue that people that are there without making an effort to learn get in the way of the people that are there to learn. I haven’t found that really to be a problem in college, since other people more often just don’t matter. In high school it could be annoying at times though. Doing a group assignment with someone that doesn’t care is a pain.</p>
<p>I get upset with people who disrupt the class and don’t pull their weight in the group, then just blow things off saying “All I need is a C.” Don’t try to screw up my GPA just because you don’t care about yours. Some of us actually care.</p>
<p>I actually had a slacker group member for a lab-based project that involved weeks of lab work, design and presentation of a poster, and then individual final papers. She stopped showing up after a week or two of the lab work (it took about six). One of the RAs in the professor’s lab helped me by doing things that were time-sensitive when I couldn’t be there, but I spent about 3 hours in that lab 4 days a week to make up for her not showing up. I doubt that there was anything wrong with her because I had her on Facebook (not anymore, though) and saw pictures of her partying every weekend. I ended up making and presenting the poster by myself and not including her name on it, which the professor supported. I don’t know what her problem was, but she ended up messaging me after the paper was due asking for information that she would have known had she come to lab at all.
It’s even worse because this was a class in the honors college. I don’t expect that she passed, but I got an A+ in the class. I was just lucky that I had a professor who agreed that one slacker shouldn’t bring down their partner’s grade. My project was even of high enough quality that I got to present it at a research symposium later that year.
So yes, I have a lot of disdain for slackers. That could have been a disaster if I hadn’t worked so hard to make sure the research got done without her help, and if the professor hadn’t been so understanding.</p>
<p>My personal opinion…group projects should be banned unless you can pick your own group and then still have the option to work on your own. There is simply no benefit in the group scenario for a hard working student in high school. The only benefit is in teaming with similarly minded students (like hiring in a corporation) if that option even exists. It’s been a while but it still irks me to this day about all the projects I had to DRAG a bunch of losers through and then we all made the same grade (cause we were a “team?”).</p>
<p>I was thinking of “underachievers” as being people who could get an A+ but instead choose to get a B because it’s easier.</p>
<p>^That’s what I was referring to. I do kind of fit into that group lol. I kind of meant, how do you feel about them, assuming they aren’t affecting you at all?</p>
<p>If you aren’t trying in school, why waste the money? Plenty of people who would strive for great grades cannot afford college so people should be more appreciative and actually try. Just my thoughts. Obviously people can choose to not put much effort forth, but I think it is a wasted opportunity.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m in the minority but I embrace underachievers. It’s their loss if they don’t want to try, and while I’m here busting my a** trying to get decent grades, it’s helpful because I look better in comparison. </p>
<p>That’s pretty selfish, I guess, but I didn’t ask them to be that way for me.</p>
<p>Maybe they feel that the effort they would have to put in to get an A+ isn’t worth the sacrifice in quality of life they might experience. They could get fine grades without feeling overworked or stressed.</p>
<p>^That’s how I am, lol. I do get annoyed when people think that I SHOULD be killing myself for straight As, or that I’m a crappy person for not doing such. I’m happy to get a B and not be stressed and be able to have fun and socialize a lot. I just get annoyed when people think I don’t deserve to be in college because I don’t “try.” I can get Bs while having fun and being happy, or As while being stressed, not having fun, and feeling unhappy. I choose Bs.</p>
<p>The most important thing in college and in life is to have a balance and respect that balance. You should always be on top of your school work, but must realize that grades are definitely not everything and they come in 2nd compared to who you know in this world. I get mad at underachievers as well, but we must also remember by having them around it also makes us stick out from the rest of the crowd, and that is a good thing :)</p>
<p>Roxsox-That’s me exactly. I need a 3.2 to keep my scholarship and that’s what I get. Apparently my freshman year roommate used to tell people I didn’t deserve my scholarship and she did instead. (This coming from the girl who gets a 500 dollar a month allowance). The reason I found out? By mid way through sophomore year she had alienated everyone of our friends with her random stressing out about school (like *****ing people out and then blaming them because they should know she has school work to do) as well as her bragging about her straight A’s, and the friend she talked to about me told me. (The girl who told me was actually here on the same scholarship, but my roommate didn’t know)</p>
<p>If the underachieving does not get in my way (it usually doesn’t) then I don’t mind. It’s their life, and if that’s what they want to do for whatever reason, I have no reason to get upset over it.</p>
<p>If it does get in my way (very rarely) as in affect my grade then yea I’ll be mad. But usually that hasn’t happened, in high school I had a couple group assignments I did by myself but they weren’t hard and I would have rather done them all myself since some of these kids were not the brightest. I wrote out entire note cards for everyone to read off of for one group presentation, which helped immensely.</p>
<p>The other time I get mad at underachievers is at work. Usually I’m fine as I’m really on top of my tables, but occasionally I’ll get “weeded” and be too busy, all the while the restaurant seems to be going down in flames because half the staff doesn’t try enough.</p>