<p>Okay, so many of you know how group projects go when you are forced to be with other group members--you end up doing most or all of the work. Basically, in engineering class I'm in a group with three other people, and we have to write 4 essays (one per member) on NASCAR racing. Yes, NASCAR racing. (I live in Georgia btw). Now, my engineering class isn't really engineering; it's more of one of those pointless elective classes where the non-academic kids go to pretty much screw around for a whole period. So guess what happened to me. I have to write 4 whole essays about the most pointless subject on this planet over my extra day off. And you get two grades for the essays: one grade is for YOUR own individual essay, and the other is the AVERAGE of all of our grades. Just great.</p>
<p>I understand the argument about how it's fair to give group grades. It's like in work; if all your co-workers fulfill their quotas, the boss gives them bonuses. But unlike me, those workers have a CHOICE in working there. If you don't like it, you can just quit. And those workers actually work because they NEED MONEY. In school, we don't get money for doing assignments. So people who don't care about their grades can just blow off these assignments without consequence. I didn't even want to be in this class; it was my school's incompetency for messing up my schedule. So, I had to be in engineering because there was no other option.</p>
<p>Can anyone relate?</p>
<p>Yeah, it happens all the time; personally I’d email your teacher, and tell them that you’re having to write all the essays and ask if it would be possible to dock some of the points of your group members or to be given permission to only write yours.</p>
<p>That’s really stupid. Sorry about that. I’d do what the above poster said or just say “screw it” and only write yours, depending on how much you care about your grade.</p>
<p>I sent him an email an hour ago.</p>
<p>Dios mio. Well, I had written a huge response, and Chrome crashed so here goes in a condensed form. You’ve emailed your teacher, now if he has any reasoning ability at all, he will take action accordingly. Make sure you explain the situation clearly and thoroughly. When are the essays due? How did you know your partners would not write it and you would have to do it all? The bad thing is that since today is a holiday, he probably won’t respond, and that’s bad if it is due tomorrow.</p>
<p>I hate group projects. I don’t have any advice - just an offer of commiseration.</p>
<p>@apandia</p>
<p>You guessed it. It is due tomorrow. I know that no one did it because they all shared their docs with me via google docs and there have been no edits since like Thursday. And I honestly don’t expect them to start today. But even if they had done the essays, from what I could tell, they would have done it completely wrong.</p>
<p>How long are these essays, the typical 5 paragraph? If I were in your situation, I would definitely do mine only and screw the others. Do they know that you’re a brilliant student and would do anything to keep an A? If so, these “partners” of yours probably had the mentality that you would alleviate their trouble of writing their own essays. </p>
<p>There is no way the teacher can be in the right mind to give you a bad grade. If he does, take it to administration and keep climbing the hierarchy if needed. You won’t lose this fight.</p>
<p>Just do yours. Forget the others. Even if you guys do get a bad grade, just remember it’s not your fault at all.</p>
<p>Phew, done with two essays. And it only took me about 5 hours (7 hours total; 2 were spent procrastinating).</p>
<p>Please, don’t do this to yourself, you’re fulfilling their hopes.</p>
<p>^ I’m gonna second that. If you keep doing other people’s work, everybody’s going to know that there’s no reason to ever do any of the work if they’re in a group with you.</p>
<p>By doing this, I think this kind of allows people to take advantage of you because they know you’ll just do all the work just to get a good grade…</p>
<p>Well I’d rather have people mooch off me than to get a bad grade.</p>
<p>Yakisoba, did your professor give the group any guidelines for participation? Write one essay, for instance, but show that you commented on (suggested edits) for the other three? If you can compile a list that shows your contributions to the others, that should be good enough. Did you try to contact the others this afternoon and nobody got back to you? The professor will probably want to know what attempts you made to reach them.</p>
<p>Are you saying all three just have outlines but no essays, or they wrote essays and you just don’t like them? For all you know, the other students believe yours is the incorrectly done part of the project. Since all three apparently completed something for their part, what makes you think you’re going to be able to turn in your version instead of theirs? If I were a member of a group, I’d be extremely upset if my work was tossed because one of my group members decided it wasn’t good enough.</p>
<p>I can’t believe you really said that. 
This kind of makes you out to be a pushover or something…</p>
<p>^ I have a comeback for that, but it’s better to not say since it’s not nice. Of course the comeback isn’t about you but rather my teammates.</p>
<p>@ErinMae My engineering teacher is REALLY chill about everything. He doesn’t follow the school rules. He specifically said to the class that we can, and I quote, “do it all” if we have to. And there’s no outline or anything; we just had to write the essay. And none of them did theirs. They started, but they only did like one or two sentences.</p>
<p>Finally done.</p>
<p>Start time: 10 AM
End time: 10 PM</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>Now I have a PhD in NASCAR racing.</p>