Group projects are the bane of every responsible student’s existence and I do not know why teachers and professors continue to assign them.

They have to know by now that every group will have at least one slacker who puts their work off on everyone else, and how is that fair?

In OP’s case, it was a big project and there was only one person willing to do any work – him.

I’m in a class where a group research project/presentation is a huge chunk of overall points. Everyone knows in group projects you always have that one slacker who doesn’t do anything that you have to compensate for.

However, I got stuck with possibly the worst 3 people to be in a project with in the class.

I did the entire research, presentation, poster boards, etc among many other annoying things myself.

I tried talking to them and telling them they needed to put in their share of effort. Ignored.

I’d send them tasks to do, ignored.

I’d try to schedule meetings, they’d say they were coming and then leave me alone at the library. This happened from the get go.

It was abundantly clear that they expected everyone else to do the work, but “everyone else” turned out to be just me.

For the presentation, they all had to present and they could not read anything word-for-word.

Rule: we couldn’t have things 100% memorized word for word, and we couldn’t read off of anything. We had to actually know the subject.

I was fully prepared to do most of the talking and even wrote down a small script for them and told them to know what to say during their part, at the very least.

The night before I told them we had to meet to at least go over the whole thing one time.

Once again, none of them showed.

When it was clear the other folks weren’t doing anything he decided to leave them high and dry on presentation day.

At this point I’m livid and decide they can just do it themselves, which means they’d get up there, not know a damn thing to say other than the small info I gave them, and couldn’t even fake anything because they did no research.

Thing is, if we miss without an excuse, we fail the project. If you have an excuse, you have to have documentation.

But he made sure his own grade wouldn’t suffer.

I commute and live an hour away, so I decide that I’ll conveniently have a flat tire right before class. Went out and actually bought a tire so I could have the receipt to prove it.

Emailed the professor, who said I can present by myself during his office hours.

Turns out, they completely bombed, and not only probably failed the project but since they’re bad students might even make them fail the class.

I bet Reddit is just cheering him on.

The top commenter knows how stressful this stuff can be.

Some professors can be a little more supportive.

And yes, anyone who has ever been on the bad end was vindicated reading this one.

They hope OP ended up with an A+.

You have to think most profs can figure it out.

Seriously, I think teachers who assign these are just sadists at this point.

Free the responsible people from group projects!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.