Well put, Denise!

Maverick---I'm curious, are you the oldest child in your family? The reason I ask is that studies have found that the oldest child is the most responsible (as a rule) and a high achiever. As the oldest child in my family, I see a lot of myself in your post. Parents tend to make the oldest into the most responsible ("You're the oldest, you have to set a good example for the others." "You're the oldest, you have to watch the others.") Is that the case with you?

Denise got it right---you will find that once you're out of school and working, you will end up being the one to pick up after the office deadwood. You will be the one that everyone comes to asking to help out with this project or that because their assistants are worthless. Of course none of these bosses want to confront the worthless ones! In other words, you get punished for being good. One office I worked in I started speaking up about this and the deadwood got passive aggressive towards me. Things like forgetting to tell me about a meeting, making veiled references to their bosses about how nobody would offer to help them. Never mind that they frittered away the day instead of doing their own work!

All that said, I do understand your frustration when it comes to group projects. Your grade depends on everybody working together to turn out a good finished project. Someone who turns in a half-a$$ed job brings down everybody's grade! You've gotten some great suggestions from others on how to handle that!

If it were me, I would look for classes (or another college) where your projects are done independently. So whatever grade you get, it is due to you and you alone. Tweet