In terms of group projects, are there many of these throughout the semester(s)? If so, what do you do with a group that your DS or DD is assigned to and has found that the group is more interested in their social life (fraternity/sorority) than completing the team assignment(s). My DS has had an eye opening experience with a group project recently and does not want to have this happen again. He is thinking about bringing it up to his professor about the lack of collaboration of the team. Will this be productive or is he just better off doing future assignments by himself and hoping that the next team that he is assigned to in October is more focused? He was expecting his fellow students to be engaged in the classroom and has found out differently. It’s not like he hasn’t experienced this before but, that was in high school! 
Maybe this will get better, after all if is only the first month. Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
I know this happened to my son too so I asked him how he handled it. He said “I just did the work myself and let the prof know on the feedback sheets after the project was over. If he expresses that he had a bad experience working with those people, he will presumably not be put in a group with them again.”
It’s definitely a bummer when college kids act like that! On balance, though, I think my son has liked most of the STEM group projects and feels like he has benefitted from learning how to work with all kinds of group members. Not all group members in a work situation are going to pull their weight either!
From my experience in the UA Business school, I can say that generally the group members were at least somewhat engaged with the curriculum, however there were times when there was a slacker (or even two) in my group that just wanted to ride the wave and not contribute. While frustrating, this is actually “REAL WORLD” because there are occasionally people assigned to project teams in the working world who aren’t motivated to contribute even though they are paid for their contribution.
My advice for your DS/DD (and mine in the future): Talk to the team members, discuss expectations of each other in terms of contribution and target outcomes. In the end, do as much of the work as you need to in order to accomplish the project goal (A grade). YOUR name is going on the finished result, so always put your best foot forward. In the project’s post-mortem review, always feel free to provide honest feedback regarding individual contributions.
I always hated when my kids were assigned group projects, especially as it always seemed that my kids were doing all the work. My son was very fortunate though when he ended up in the hospital in college and his team did the rest of the work for him (he did what he could from his hospital bed.) He ended up with an A in that class despite being out for 9 days. Of course they did know why he wasn’t contributing more so I don’t think they minded as much.
I haven’t been at UA, but I have completed an MBA program at another school. Business schools give a lot of group projects! Even in graduate school in a program with working adults there seemed to be issues in many groups. Even with adults, there was a wide difference in how much time some group members were willing to devote, how much some group members were willing to take advantage of their peers, how much group members were willing to negotiate to create a shared final project, etc. But honestly, the grade for the project is evaluating the ability to navigate different personalities and priorities and finding a means to accomplish a goal together as it is the content of the assignment. I don’t know if it occurs in the STEM MBA program, but in my MBA program the students always had an opportunity to evaluate their group members before the instructor gave course grades. While in most courses I was content in giving group members good ratings, in a couple courses the evaluation was where I felt compelled to bring it to the instructors attention that some group members were not contributing enough to deserve the same grade as the remaining members.
I am a sophomore in the STEM MBA program and I have had some awful groups. I never approached my teacher. But my new professor allows us to “fire” unhelpful teammates halfway through. In life sometimes you have to work with difficult people. That’s what my professor told a friend of mine who complained about their group.
My son is into the second year of this program, and there will be many group projects just like last year, and some students will carry their load and others will mooch off the others - just as in the real world (though there are several students from last year who did not come back, thank goodness for all concerned.) Some team members do their parts willingly and others have to be encouraged-prodded-nagged to do theirs.
I would encourage your son to use this opportunity to gain leadership and negotiation skills and learn as much as he can about how to deal with people in positive, effective ways. If he needs to learn more about how to work with different personalities in order to motivate them, there are lots of great business books out there that provide all kinds of clues. That old standby, Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, is a good one, and, in fact, many engineering companies are re-introducing those Carnegie principles within their engineering groups, because as smart and talented as engineers may be, the stereotype regarding lack of people skills has much truth to it.
My husband is an engineer/manager/process guy who has to interface with people at all levels in a very large engineering company. He interfaces daily with higher ups - very high up directors - who want stuff done and expect it to be done. They don’t want to hear about team members who are not doing their fair share. Sometimes, it is those directors themselves who don’t want to do their own work on their own grand ideas. When all is said and done, though, my husband has to make sure those projects get done, and get it done with a smile, and bug people without aggravating them, and deal with a lot of pushback. If he ever complained that others weren’t getting their work done, he would be out of a job.
If your son can learn how to motivate any team he is a part of, he will gain skills that will serve him extremely well on the job someday.
Thanks for all of your great responses and I passed them on to my son! I’m thinking he is going to gain a lot of experience with this class! Week 2 and the same knuckleheads are letting him do all of the work! I’m glad he gets a new group early in October. It also proved to him that he was going to have a tough time balancing school and the fraternity life (which his teammates are in). It’s just salt in the wound since he decided against joining and now hears about all of the fun that is to be had when they are not participating in their group project.
That’s disappointing in a STEM-MBA class, I would have had higher expectations for them. Good luck to him, and maybe his next group will be a much better match.
Like with any group project in school or real life, some people are going to end up doing more work than others most of the time. That’s ok, you kind of just have to live with it. However, if someone doesn’t do anything whatsoever, I would totally call them out on it.