Groupwork is an experience I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy

There’s no groan audible anywhere on Earth quite like that heard when a lecturer announces details of a group work project. Just loud enough that said lecturer knows exactly how everyone in the room feels about the tedious, awkward, all round ball-ache that group work is. Here’s why everyone just can’t stand it.

You always seem to get a shit group

It seems incredibly rare that friends get put in working groups together. Most likely you’ll be stuck with four or five people who you’ve either never or only briefly spoken to before, and if you’re a bit unlucky, at least one person you actively dislike. This makes the situation uncomfortable from the start; it’s a bit like freshers week all over again.

Your lecturer sends an email saying you have to do group work. Lucky you!

You sort of try to be engaging and friendly, but inside you’d rather be anywhere else in the world than sat in the group study area in the library with some people you couldn’t give a rat’s arse about. You spend the whole time wondering why you even took this module in the first place, and/or fantasizing about the food you’re going to eat when you get home.

Group projects are never interesting, and often seem pointless

You can’t help but think: ‘Why am I doing a group powerpoint presentation? I’m at university, I thought I’d be done with this crap after sixth form’. We all did. Yet for some reason lecturers still feel the need to make you waste hours of your time throwing together a 5 minute presentation on an incredibly specific topic, which will therefore be exactly the same as every other group’s. Seriously, what is the point?

Seriously though

At least one person will contribute absolutely nothing

They’ll sit there on their phone during the awkward library meetings, whilst the rest of you are trying to get the work over with. They won’t send you their work when required and you can bet that they probably won’t even turn up to the lecture to present the thing anyway. If you didn’t hate them before, you do now.

You gotta stay calm

At least one person will be super organised and their slides will put yours to SHAME

You may have been proud of your slides when you made them. Hell, they had a custom layout, subtle yet distinctive font choices, the lot. But then along comes the guy with several self-shot images and videos to accompany his slides, a soundtrack recorded by Led Zeppelin and a freakin’ quiz at the end. It’s fine, he’s probably a sad lowlife anyway, no one has that much time to spend on this crap. Or that’s what you’ll tell yourself after your embarrassing efforts are completely out to shame in front of your whole class.

At least one of you will choke and bring your whole group’s presentation marks down

This is particularly bad if the person that chokes is you.

One Vodka too much. Enough said.

After all this, you’ll probably get a crap mark anyway

No one ever seems to get good marks for group work. As if you needed another reason to think the whole thing’s a waste of time.