University group work....

Stuff like this is great for job interviews. You will be asked about challenges you've faced, and how you find group work, and you'll need to explain how you deal with these problems.

Group work is a pain, particularly when placed with people with little/no motivation. Don't blame it on race, course requirements/grading or "kids nowadays"- some people are lazy, that's how it is. Do your best to work with these people in the best way you can- organise them and divide up the work, taking a greater-than-average share of it. Make clear the things you plan to do, and whip other people into shape.

If this sorts your group, great. You've put in an unreasonable amount of work for saying you only get equal marks, but you still get good grades. If your group fails to work with you, refusing or not bothering to complete basic tasks you set and explain to them, e-mail your tutor to make an appointment to discuss the issue with them- knock on their door if you have no response. This way, you've taken extra steps to try and sort the problem, and your tutor knows that you aren't running to them at the first sign of trouble.
 
hybrid572 said:
Stuff like this is great for job interviews. You will be asked about challenges you've faced, and how you find group work, and you'll need to explain how you deal with these problems.

Group work is a pain, particularly when placed with people with little/no motivation. Don't blame it on race, course requirements/grading or "kids nowadays"- some people are lazy, that's how it is. Do your best to work with these people in the best way you can- organise them and divide up the work, taking a greater-than-average share of it. Make clear the things you plan to do, and whip other people into shape.

If this sorts your group, great. You've put in an unreasonable amount of work for saying you only get equal marks, but you still get good grades. If your group fails to work with you, refusing or not bothering to complete basic tasks you set and explain to them, e-mail your tutor to make an appointment to discuss the issue with them- knock on their door if you have no response. This way, you've taken extra steps to try and sort the problem, and your tutor knows that you aren't running to them at the first sign of trouble.
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I'm not blaming it on race. I was saying that some of the Chinese students cannot speak English properly. That is just an observation.

I have done the above, in that i have took on a larger proportion of the work and told people I'd organize things as i hate taking a back seat. Just still annoying when you try to be as reasonable as possible, try fit everything around them so they don't have to miss anything and then they just don't turn up.
 
I had quite a bit of group work last year. We could tell the tutor if someone didn't do as much and we would get more marks than them.
 
Be thankful for international students, without their fees you probably wouldn't have a course to be on ;)

But seriously, I do wish that they would all collectively get lost, 99% of them contribute absolutely nothing other than their fees.
 
That happened to me in my first seimester. Everybody seemed they was at uni just for a laugh and thats it. So me and some other people had to carry them so we don't get a bad mark either. We had a chinese guy as well who never opened his mouth but when asked a question he would only say he was from guangdong!!! how was that going to help.
 
I did some software engineering modules as part of a mixed science degree at uni. I got bundled in with the other mixed science students, all of whom utterly sucked a programming. I had to code everything. I ended up doing an all nighter to finish the project on the last day when one berk finally admitted that none of his code worked. Argh. Then I got marked down because of our poor teamwork. Cheers.
 
I remember my second year group project at uni (which involved programming in fortran77 on a VAX) ...

Me
Very shy, introverted welsh guy
Jolly Welsh guy
Goth girl

Well ... the jolly Welsh guy was scared of the Goth girl .... really, really scared so it was fortunate that she practically never turned up. The shy guy was very clever but completely incapable of articulating anything. Fortunately he could program, I could debug and the jolly guy could present so we made it through.

But yep, in the real world you will come across many people, particularly offshore, whose English comprehension is poor and you need to be able to still deal with them .... not fun at times ...
 
Thankfully only one project for my degree was group work. I never bothered going to any lectures or classes (thanks to a loophole of me being listed as part time) and did all my courseworks by reading the lecture notes from the intranet which I could access at home. Thus, when I went in I didn't know anyone. It didn't really matter though, as the group was randomly assigned anyway.

We were supposed to work as a group but every meeting was taken up by the self-proclaimed alpha male of the group droning on about his work on the user interface of our translator and no one else got a word in.

I ended up programming the whole thing on my own at home just for the challenge (apart from Mr. Charisma's UI) and uploading it to the intranet, and the rest of the group did the presentation and the paperwork while I stayed at home and played computer games.

So much for a group assignment.
 
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will one module really effect your placement year that much ? if your lecturers can see your bright (in other modules) they will just give you a great reference/prediction anyway
 
Had this problem in second year, we were forced into random groups based on the tutorials were assigned to and I ended up with the laziest bunch of mongoloids I've ever met. After the first few weeks of putting some effort in I just gave up seeing as I'd always be waiting at least 30 mins for just one person to turn up to a group meeting; most not attending at all. We still ended up with 50% for the assignment which isn't the worst that could have happened considering it was worth about 0.4% of my whole degree I guess.

Other group work is fine as I just work with friends aren't lazy and incompetent.
 
I had to send a ranty email to our group yesterday :(.

Group assignment has multiple hand-ins. For the one before Christmas the rest of the group disappeared apart from me and one other... so we then did the entire hand-in on our own (and got 87% for it).
The next hand-in is coming up PDQ and two of the group seem to appear and disappear with the alignment of the stars or something equally unpredictable!
Our group is now way behind the other group, yet for the tutorial everyone of the other group turned up but only half of our group turned up.
 
You're not utilizing the Chinese properly. The further you go in uni the more you'll realise that they hold all the answers. Teach them English and tap into the Chinese pool of knowledge.
 
TFleming said:
Then there is the issue of Chinese people who can't even speak English properly, has some boffin decided to have mixed race groups to cause the most confusion possible? Why don't they just put the British with the British and Chinese with Chinese. Then we can communicate effectively and it won't cause language barriers. You would expect them to be able to speak properly and fluent seeing as they are studying in an English university yet they really can't. Some girl I'm with in a group took 3 minutes of attempting to read 3 brief bullet points off a slide. Simple words like manager and hygiene she didn't know, nor could anybody understand her. I can't believe they don't have some sort of English test before they are allowed to be enrolled? They are not all as bad but a hell of a lot are.
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Why mandate further segregation than what might naturally happen? These students have come across here to try and gain some experience in a country outside their own - maybe it's just me but I tend to see that as something to be respected rather than deplored. I'm sure it can be frustrating but if you make a bit of an effort they'll probably do likewise and if they don't then by all means feel free to tell the tutor about their failures.

If you really have a problem with it then about all you can do is complain to your tutor and make it clear what you've done so that you get credit where it is due. However it may be worth considering it good practice for the working world after university - you will almost certainly have to work with people you don't like or who don't do the level of work you think is necessary.

DAnDan said:
Am I the only person who has been able to choose all their own groups for group work at uni? Seems like a much better idea to me!
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Seems like a bit of a cop-out to me, it's fine if you can pick the people you want to work with but often you don't have any choice in the matter and so need to be able to work with whoever you get. It might not be as much fun but it is valuable experience.

Disco Boy said:
But seriously, I do wish that they would all collectively get lost, 99% of them contribute absolutely nothing other than their fees.
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I'm sorry you've had bad experiences with foreign students, conversely I've thoroughly enjoyed most of my experiences with foreign students and especially the all too brief exchange that I did to another country.
 
Just use your social skills the rectify the problem. Be firm, but don't let it dictate your relationship with those individuals. Nobody likes a moaner, especially when it's for something that is arguably pointless (a group piece that is worth 10% of one first year module, for example).
 
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