From late meet ups to no-shows: KCL students share their worst group project experiences

Group projects are probably the only academic rite of passage where students actually emerge having lost brain cells.

They rear their ugly heads far too often and come into our lives to teach us something about our course mates we either didn’t need to know, or could’ve easily guessed without yet another WhatsApp group chat.

As something we can all relate to, The King’s Tab decided to take to Instagram and ask for your worst group project stories. From control freaks to ghosters, your responses left us with one question: Who are these cursed course mates, and where do they find the audacity?

‘Partner just did no work whatsoever. But they got a zero, and I got a 2:1, so no complaints.’

A classic university story. Too many of us have come head-to-head with a freeloader, but not all of us get the pleasure of seeing them suffer for their slacking. Justice? Maybe. Still infuriating? Definitely.

A group project in name only, yet theirs is a name you’ll never forget, especially when it’s read out in the seminar each week to complete silence.

‘No one’s timetable matched, so the group meets had to be at 8pm.’

Tired, hungry, and slightly resentful. When stuck with course mates you’ll never speak to again, its hardly peak productivity time. Your only motivation is the pub after, or your bed calling your name. Either way, get it done and get out of there.

‘Getting cc’ed into a random group project email thread.’

Sure, it clogs your Outlook inbox, but being accidentally drafted into the drama is elite entertainment. Front-row seats to a group slowly falling apart? Say less. 

However, if you’re being copied in by mistake, someone in that group is completely out of the loop. The second someone clocks it, it’s bound to be drama. Too bad your spot on the sidelines disappears when that day comes.

‘They added an extra course mate once the project was practically finished, who railroaded the entire presentation overnight without telling us.’

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Everyone loves a Type A group leader, but not once the project is already done and dusted. Unnecessary changes, conversation confusion, and a group dynamic that completely derails.

It makes you wonder why they got moved to your group so urgently in the first place. I’m just surprised they didn’t scrap the entire thing and make you all start over.

‘No one replied to my group chat messages about meeting up, and we only had two weeks left.’

Few things are more stressful than being left on read when a deadline is looming. However, the slow realisation that you will inevitably be doing the entire project yourself, and getting a message the night before saying ‘sorry, just seeing this now’, might just be worse.

If being ignored by grown adults is what professors mean when they say that group work prepares you for the working world, then consider my CV filled to the brim.

‘All other group members conveniently skipped the presentation day, so I was left to explain everyone else’s slides.’

This might be the ultimate group project betrayal story. Not only are you presenting, but you’re suddenly responsible for explaining work you didn’t even do.

I would say shake it off, it’s character building, but you’ve already been lied to enough by your course mates. You deserve so much better.

‘Watched my course-mate archive the group chat (we had just made) in the lift on our way out of the class.’

This might be the best and worst thing I’ve ever heard. If you needed a sign that your group project was doomed from the start, this is it. 

This shameless course mate leaves us with two lessons. Always scan the campus lift, because someone is watching. More importantly, group projects need to be archived by KCL with immediate effect.

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