For many people, group projects are the worst part of any school experience. While they are supposed to teach students how to work together, they often turn into one person doing all the work and the others benefiting from it.

When the student in this story was the only one who even showed up to work on the group project for a class, she did all the work and got everything ready for the final presentation. Rather than typing up what should be said during the presentation, however, she just memorized her part.

When the whole group came up to present to the class, only she knew what should be said. The teacher tried to fail them all, but she appealed and got herself a good grade while the others got a zero.

This is just one of many reasons why most students despise group projects in school.

School group project

I had a college project where it was an assigned group of 5, we didn’t know each other.

Teaching kids to work in groups is important, but I’m sure it is also easier on the teachers.

I am convinced teachers do this not so we learn how to work in groups but rather so they only have to mark 6 papers instead of 30.

One of the other four showed up to one of our team meetings once, the others never showed up at all.

Wow, the rest of the group is useless.

The one who did show up brought no work, no laptop, no pen or paper. Was just there.

Everyone had a specific section to work on and we were to present in class as a group. Throughout the term we had a google doc where we could upload our work.

This person really got stuck with a bunch of lazy students.

One signed on once and did nothing else. One asked one question, “what is this even about?”. One said this was stupid and he wasn’t doing it. The other one copy/pasted Wikipedia and that was it.

Everything was divided evenly and every week we were to check in with the professor in regards to questions or problems.

At least she is bringing it to the attention of the professor. His response, however, is crazy.

I didn’t hold back so I simply asked what would happen if I only do my part because the other 4 were flaking out and not even coming to class.

Her response, we’d all fail. So fine, I did everything.

Let’s see how this all plays out.

Day of the presentation they all showed up. It was worth 40% of our grade. The class had a copy of the presentation and the professor had a line by line version of what we were going to present as well as the written report.

I gave the introduction and let the other 4 present their parts. They never once asked to see any of it or read any of it before hand. They were just going to “present”. OK

She set them up for failure, which is exactly what they deserved.

The power point was just a photo, no text and none of them had anything to say. One tried to sum up my introduction and he looked worse for trying. The others simply refused to go to the podium.

What I did not do is put the text on the powerpoint for any of our parts, which means I had to memorize my intro, my section and the conclusion.

If they wanted to participate, they should have done the assignment.

In my support for the conclusion I summarized what they were supposed to say so it made sense. The written report only had my name on it and I included an addendum for the other four people’s contribution in total.

It was a printout of our work google doc with all their names and contributions including the plagiarized Wikipedia.

How on Earth can they blame her for this?

They were mad at me for not including the text or specifically, “screwing up their parts”. They didn’t even know the topic of the presentation let alone what they were supposed to say.

My professor said we’d all get the same grade and because 4 of the 5 sections were incomplete it would be a failing grade.

This is beyond unfair to the only person who did the work.

I was going into that presentation with a 98% so even if I got a zero I’d pass the course but there was no way I was accepting that.

There is an appeal process that goes to the chair of the program and then the dean of the school.

At least they are giving her a grade based on her own work.

On the day of the appeal meeting with the chair of the program I was informed that they decided I would be graded for my part and the other four would get a zero.

I got an 85 which honestly was a low grade for that work but the other four failed the program.

She could have gotten a better grade, but that would be far less satisfying.

If I had put the text in the power point and just let them read it they would probably have passed and I would have upped my average from 93% to 95 or something like that.

I regret nothing, it was so worth it.

Hopefully, these other students learned their lesson. It is good to see that this one student at least got a reasonable grade for all her work.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a firm who was fed up with a client denying they’d asked for changes, so they simply stopped following up with them.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

No college should allow this, regardless of how much it costs.

The professor is the real villain of this story.

This person is going through something similar now.

Nobody likes group projects except the lazy people who benefit from them.

This person is upset that her initial grade was so low.

This story has a very satisfying ending, but it is awful that the professor tried to fail the one student who actually did the work. She should never have had to go through the appeal process.

At least the students who didn’t put in any effort failed the class. It is an important lesson they need to learn.