Little Things You Hate
- Thread starter -|Sean|-
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hach_bee
Likes Bikes and Dirt
Hamsta
Likes Bikes and Dirt
Welcome to the wonderful world of group assessments. Honestly, if these nimrods don't heed your warnings and get their shit together in a rapid manner, schedule an appointment with your tutor/lecturer, take all work done to date and demonstrate that they did sweet fuck all, what they did do was shithouse, and that you did the majority of the work. Keep the work they emailed you as proof. If the tutors/lecturers start up with the "it is groupwork, and part of groupwork is learning to work as a group, there is nothing that I can do", politely tell them to go fuck themselves and arrange to meet the HOD.
If your group members call you a prick, retort by suggesting they pull their respective fingers out and do some work. If they have time for fapping, Facebook, dare I say it riding, updating their lame blog, getting drunk/stoned/shooting up, Deal or No Deal, playing Ultimate Frisbee (WTFITAA?), working out in the gym, TV in general and sleeping more than 8 hours per night, then they have time to begin to learn to open a text and read and read until their eyes bleed.
This was a pet hate of mine at uni last year when I was doing 1 post grad unit and working offshore and I have seen my girlfriend and some other friends have to deal with these type of fuckwits at both undergrad and at a post grad level. Take no prisoners and remember that whilst it is nice to make friends, people with their priorities ass about simply are not worth the hassle and are ultimately unreliable.
No appologies for the strong language nor the rant liberaly sprinkled with seething hate but lazy students who expect to get an easy ride from other students in groups deserve to be shunned, iced out and repeatedly reminded of their shortcomings as human beings.
Where is the 'I want to kill people death metal' smiley
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for those about to rock
Likes Dirt
Too right. I've done my part and I got the work emailed to me from one of the other three guys so I'm just gonna give them what's done and tell em to finish it in the morning before the presentation. It's not like it's even hard to get 2mins of speech together.
wombat
Lives in a hole
Or the other golden one: "in the industry you're not always going to get to pick your colleagues, you'll just have to get used to being part of a team". Yes, but if another part of that team doesn't actually show up to work, ever, then they will be fired; so I would like to fire half of my group.
for those about to rock
Likes Dirt
Would it be worth me finishing it myself so we have a half decent presentation (which is going to be examined on)? Or should I just leave it and say "I did my part, it's not my fault."
wombat
Lives in a hole
Depends entirely on how it's marked and if there's any allowance given for distribution of credit amongst the group, or if it's a lazy assessor who's just going to throw the same mark at everyone.
Hamsta
Likes Bikes and Dirt
EDIT:
If you have already formed an agreement with your group members regarding proof reading and creating powerpoint, then you are technicaly bound by that agreement. Chalk this first group assignment up to experience and at least you will know what to expect next time (I hope not).
However, if you do not receive the material from your group members as planned, or if what you receive is utter shite, then present your contributuion to as high a standard as possible then make very clear that "I did my part, it is not my fault". If the assessor seems like he or she is going to penalise your mark in part because of others performance, then dig your toes in and ask for a rationale as to why etc. Don't be obnoxious, just very firm and don't be fobbed off as just another undergrad with a lot to learn about uni life.
You are ultimately paying for this education, and indirectly the tutor/lecturers employment, and this is a situation where you have a very, very. valid reason to not accept any academic penalty because of your ability to organise yourself and meet a deadline.
Just like a lecturer cannot be held accountable if you fail to pre-read, attend lectures and contribute in labs/tutes, you cannot be held accountable if your group members cannot get their priorities right and produce some worthwhile work.
Remember this: In an 'adult' learning environment, what is good for the Goose is good for the Gander.
'Dumb/retarded' and 'Lazy' are two very different things. Be aware of assuming that people fall into the first category when they are more likely to fit into the second
Good luck and let us know the outcome.
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Having had to mark these things - people almost always come up to us after the fact to complain about the shitty group they had and ask for mitigation and leniency in marks, when I really can't do much. Similarly if you're dyslexic and need extra time to do an exam, there's not much point telling us AFTER the exam you didn't finish it and need extra time, as we can only mitigate these things before the work is handed in. If you were in job situation, your group gave a shitty client presentation and the first your boss heard of it was when he saw it in the board room at the client meeting, do you really think "well MY bit was good" would absolve you of all blame?
Part of the group project is managing people. If you come up to me BEFORE the assignment has been handed in, demonstrate to me you did your agreed portion of the project to a decent standard and YOU DID MAKE A REASONABLE EFFORT TO MANAGE THE OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR GROUP I can usually justify differential marks. Just talk to your tutor, forward them the crappy communication you've had with your lame ass group members and some evidence that you did the bit of the presentation which didn't suck, and if it was me marking the project, I'd probably try and help you out.
Edit: It's simple - if I haven't been informed of the issues with group members before I mark the work, I don't know about them as I'm not psychic. Be proactive, don't expect post hoc adjustment of your marks. Additionally I can't simply take your word for your sucky group member - for all I know you're the sucky group member trying to take credit for the others hard work. I need EVIDENCE that you did the non-sucky bit and/or the group member did not reply to communication/did not attend scheduled meetings etc.
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for those about to rock
Likes Dirt
Cheers dude. I agree with everything you are saying. If it's up to us students to present the lectures, why dont we all just study the topics at home and do it ourselves? I understand that it gives us a chance to be on the otherside but I hardly feel that he should get paid for the lectures we do, nor should we have to pay for us to study our own work anyway. All he has to do is tick it off to say we did a good job. Maybe my frustration is getting to me. It is only our first one, and we did only have one week to do it rather than the usual three, but still; it wasn't that hard of a task.
Thanks for your input Arete. it certainly helps hearing from the perspective of a lecturer/tutor on the situation. I'll just hope the others come through in the morning or I'll be paying a visit to my (un)friendly, neighbourhood, lecturer.
An old mechanic's tale has a customer bringing in a car for a tune and the mechanic turning the 2 carburettor screws until the idle was smooth. Then asking for $50. The outraged customer complains that it's ridiculous that he has to pay $50 for the mechanic to turn 2 screws. The mechanic replies "You're paying me $5 to turn the screws, and $45 to know when to stop."
Similarly, your lecturer/tutor is paid to know which are the right questions to ask and to know when you've done a good job answering them or not.
for those about to rock
Likes Dirt
True. When I rocked up at uni early the others were finishing off theirs. Apparently they finished it too late and that their internet wasn't working properly to email it to me. I managed to get the powerpoint done 10 mins before the lecture. Their half sucked, but we got it done. I'll be on their backs for the next one though.
wespelarno
Likes Dirt
I was hanging out with some guys I met in a bar. One was an anaethetist. Someone was giving him shit about it being the lazy mans medicine, how anybody could spin some dials and complaining he got paid to much for obviously paltry efforts. Calm as can be, this guy turns around and replies "you aren't paying me to put you to sleep. You are paying me to wake you back up".
I have been screwed a couple of times by the group assignment issue. What amazed me was in one situation, in the face of what was glaringly one persons fault, the entire group was marked down. We had 10 minutes to talk each+intro and conclusion, giving a 60 minute seminar total. One guy spoke for 32 minutes by the markers timing. The marker then cut us off at the 70 minute mark and the group got screwed because two people outright didn't speak. Apart from the fact we were doing our best to silently tell this dude to shut the hell up during the speech, and all of us saying to the marker we had told him to cut content, it was all to no avail. That lecturer was a pain in the ass and seemed to specialise in being obtuse so the result didn't surprise me. That said, I have had lecturers who genuinely tried to do the right thing by us and did adjust the mark distribution when it was apparent one person had screwed us all over.
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'Ross
Eats Squid
I present to you a story of triumph; last semester I fired my assigned duo presentation team member and it all worked out great.
I've had to do some kind of group presentation for almost every subject so I've been around the block....in this instance it was a duo report and presentation, pretty heavy stuff with a tutor who demanded a lot of work in a very structured format.
My assigned partner was from Hong Kong, his English was ok and we actually got on well. The tutor set it up so you weren't given the topic until 2 weeks before it was due to keep it equitable, once we got our topic we agreed to do some general research and meet up 3 days later. We met up and were both on the same page so I asked which topics (there was a checklist) he was comfortable with and he could take those I would do the rest.
We agreed to send drafts of our work a week out, he sent me copy pasted rubbish but said it was just a draft so I didn't panic. Long story short his work never evolved from the copy pasted rubbish that wasn't even on the right topic, I offered to help, gave him some pointers and even gave him some starters on each topic....he then took this and copy pasted it back into his other rubbish. I knew the copy paste wouldn't get past the tutor so I told the guy straight up 'do it properly or we will fail' He then got on the defensive and accused me of copying his work somehow, I offered to help with the presentation and slideshow but he witheld all his stuff saying he didn't want to show me.
So I fired him. Told the tutor who had a bit of a melt down about it, scared that our presentation would be no good, so I did the whole thing on my own and presented everything the tutor wanted to here. It wasn't great but the boxes were ticked. The tutor then got up in front of the class and gave a speech about my bravery and courage through this adverse situation....I was very shocked and actually embarrassed.
My partner ended up making some kind of complaint, I had to fill out some forms and provide records of our correspondence, turns out he didn't do any other work besides the original copy paste garbage and his whole story was just a lie to pretend like he was secretly doing work.
When I fired him I thought it could only end bad for me, but the tutor actually respected it and I got a Distinction overall which was another pleasant surprise.
This semester I was in another group that was ok except for one lazy member so I casually brought up the story...'yep he wasn't pulling his wait so I fired him' this compelling story frightened the lazy guy into picking up his weight.:clap2:
