This semester I have learned a handful of life lessons, but one of them stuck out most to me. Growing up I always loved group projects. It was a time to get together with peers, have fun, communicate, and most importantly, get the work done. I have had three group projects this semester, and my views on group projects have changed. I have always been reliable and the type of person to get my work done. I assumed that mostly everyone else would be too, since we are all paying to go to school and have a goal for our futures, but I was wrong. College group projects are so much different than high school or grade school group projects.
First, there was finding a time the whole group could meet. Everyone has such different schedules and it is almost impossible to find a time everyone can meet. Then there are the kids who just don’t do anything. When working in group projects, reliability is a very important thing. I have learned that not everyone can be reliable. Don’t expect something to automatically get done without checking up on other members. Not everyone is as reliable as you.
I have big goals for myself. I want to succeed in college, I want to be a good person, friend, and family member. Putting my goals with peers’ goals in a group project is very difficult. Not everyone has the same goals, so it’s hard to reach all the goals in the group. Usually most students in the group have the common goal to finish the project, but there are students who don’t have that goal. When this happens it becomes hard for the other students to reach their goals, which then causes everyone to stress out. An old grade school teacher I knew once said, “If you really stop and think about it, it’s not that big of a deal”. That has been in the back of my head every time I stress about something. It’s college, everyone is going to be stressed at one point, that’s when teamwork kicks in.