Diary of a Gen Z Student: What I really learned from group projects... is how to work alone

They're called group assignments but they're always done by just one person

Jane Cowan: "The group leader will be established early on. And if everyone else in the group can tell that you’re actually hoping to secure employment after graduation, you will become the leader." Picture: Moya Nolan

A very common experience when you first go into college is feeling that everyone is more intelligent than you. It’s not true, but it can certainly feel that way.

You thought everyone was coming into university with Leaving Cert standards in maths or English or whatever. Somehow, though, people will act like they’ve been drafting their dissertation since their communion. You’ll resent your parents for not giving you a copy of Aristotle’s Poetics at birth.

It can be a little disheartening, feeling like you’re destined for mediocrity.

But then, this glorious thing will happen. You will be assigned a group project. Suddenly, you will find yourself surrounded by the most incompetent beings on offer in your university.

And all of those thoughts you previously had about how you must have cheated the system to get into your course, will fade away. They will be replaced by genuine questions about how you wound up in a group of people acting like they don’t even know they’re in university.

It’s how I imagine herding sheep to feel. But at least sheep have got an excuse for their idiocy.

In fairness, I have gotten off lightly when it comes to university group projects. My English degree doesn’t usually involve that kind of assessment. 

Alas, most universities will force you to take modules that are outside of your discipline at some stage in your studies. And for me, that meant taking modules that liked to test the length of my temper, by group project.

Many obstacles arise when trying to make it through university group projects. Organising meetings is one. You’ll find yourself emailing this group of adults like a desperate ex girlfriend, just begging for them to acknowledge your existence. 

You don’t have time to play hard to get. Because if you wait for them to come to you, it’ll be when they’ve already failed the module.

If you manage to organise a time for that meeting, you would be lucky to get a 50% turnout. About 30 minutes after the meeting was due to start, the emails will flood in...

One person will be on the side of a mountain in the Alps (hello?).

One person will be too busy to make it (as if the rest of us are here for fun).

One person has dropped out of university (can’t blame them).

One person is running late but will get there ASAP (they never show up).

It’s all so unsurprising, that you can't really be mad.

In some ways this 'gentle parenting' of grownups is like free contraception. It would put anyone off child rearing. 

You’ll be looking a 22-year-old in the eye and telling him that he can actually go inside that mythical building in the distance (the library) to do project research. Practically begging them to just write something, anything to contribute to the project.

And while you’re holding someone’s hand as you introduce them to Google Scholar, it’s important that you don’t come across too eager. The group leader will be established early on. 

And if everyone else in the group can tell that you’re actually hoping to secure employment after graduation, you will become the leader.

Against my best efforts, I’ve always gotten myself into that role. I can’t help it. At a certain point, you’ve just got to be resigned to the reality that if you don’t take these students in hand a project will simply not happen.

In good faith, tasks will be divvied out. And you’ll beg everyone to avoid ChatGPT, knowing you’re fighting a losing battle.

One week before the project deadline is when things get real. My emails will peak in desperation. Politeness will go out the window. My earlier handholding will be replaced by thinly veiled threats of telling my mom on you.

Jane Cowan: "In good faith, tasks will be divvied out... One week before the project deadline is when things get real. My emails will peak in desperation. Politeness will go out the window... And about two hours before the thing is due, people will send in their scraps of work."

Inevitably though, no one else in your group will care that you’re absurdly worked up about this project. And about two hours before the thing is due, people will send in their scraps of work. 

As the group leader, it’ll fall on you to check for spelling mistakes. You’ll quickly combine all of those shameful pieces of work and submit it with your eyes closed.

I’m going into my final semester in January. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to the group project-free modules that I’ve chosen for my final semester. I’ve served my time.

It was nice to figure out that I’m not the worst student in Trinity.

But I didn’t love finding out just how little people can know, while still managing to walk away with a fully-fledged university degree. Maybe they actually are the smartest kids on campus.