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Originally posted by srussell0018 I don't particularly care for Jenny. You're just wrong and have no frame of reference to argue anything on the topic of group work in a post-secondary education setting.

How am I wrong?


Even if I am wrong I do have work experience, which, in the end is what really matters since you end up working far longer than you are a student (unless you are Lira).

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby In High School/Undergraduate you have no expectation of competence from the other people in your group. You might be interested in the group activity, but that does not guarantee that everyone else is. If no one else is motivated, it might as well be a solo-project, but often group activities (if the instructor isnt a fuck off) have a work load that is impossible to manage and complete just on your own (at least to a level of quality that will get you a good grade). This is why group activities are annoying. You end up spending more time managing a group of fuck-offs than you do actually getting work done.

Either you're just talking about high school, which is irrelevant to the topic of group work in college, or you're talking about both, when you obviously don't know anything about the latter.

You're forgetting that most people that go to good colleges/universities are there for a reason. It's not like high school where half of the class goes on to become gas station attendants. Just because you're bad at working in groups doesn't mean that everyone is.

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Originally posted by srussell0018 Either you're just talking about high school, which is irrelevant to the topic of group work in college, or you're talking about both, when you obviously don't know anything about the latter. You're forgetting that most people that go to good colleges/universities are there for a reason. It's not like high school where half of the class goes on to become gas station attendants. Just because you're bad at working in groups doesn't mean that everyone is.

Where did I mention good colleges or universities? How does that even factor in to it? There are many "good" colleges with incompetent students, just because you got into college doesn't mean you are smart, especially in this country. Sadly in this country it's almost required to go to college to work in McDonalds or a gas station. See the whole debate on the worth of college in the US a few pages back.

Expecting people to be competent because they are in an undergraduate course is laughable.

See edit. I don't know what it's like at community colleges or poorly rated universities, but speaking from my experience group work was not an issue because the majority of students in each group were inevitably good students. The only time group work failed or was more difficult was when there were members of it who didn't work well with others, i.e. you.

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Originally posted by srussell0018 See edit. I don't know what it's like at community colleges or poorly rated universities, but speaking from my experience group work was not an issue because the majority of students in each group were inevitably good students. The only time group work failed or was more difficult was when there were members of it who didn't work well with others, i.e. you.

You are an idiot and either ignoring or not reading my arguments. I work fine in groups, but if there is one or two people in the group that are not pulling their weight, not only do you have to try and keep them in check and on task and being productive, but often you end up having to take on their task load.

That is why I said if I have the choice I prefer non-group assignments because the possibility of having to deal with that is not worth it.

I know thats not often a choice in real life, but in real life, if you are working in a group it is usually amongst your intellectual peers, and it is a job, where failure is usually not an option (where it is often an option in school). If you have someone who is incompetent at work in your group you basically can have them moved off the project and reprimanded (unless they are your boss... ). There is just more motivation to be competent, and if you are not competent enough, the motivation is there to bring yourself up to speed ASAP.

You're talking about situations involving group work at universities that you have never attended. Therein lies your dilemma.

Actually I am dealing with this right now. The sound guy in this group project I am working on right now, he basically has no concept of time. He thought we were releasing this weekend... But its next week at some point at the earliest, and it might even be pushed back further because he still has open tickets on the project!

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Originally posted by srussell0018 You're talking about situations involving group work at universities that you have never attended. Therein lies your dilemma.

You are talking solely from your singular experience, which you have not even provided a single case example to back up your argument.

Your only counter-argument is that I can't be right because I haven't gone, which is quite specious.

I am arguing a point that Egos made, and Egos attended university (I assume). I even made the argument first, and then someone with more higher education experience than me also argued generally the same point.

So, is Egos wrong as well? Is his argument more valid, even if its the exact same? Maybe I am making a logical progression in my thought process that does not require direct experience, but is based off of related experiences? Have you considered that as a possible source of information for my arguments? No, you haven't apparently.

On a some what related note, how do you feel about the field of psychology?

Miami!

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby On a some what related note, how do you feel about the field of psychology?

I like it? Almost all of the group projects that I had in college were for Psych/BCS classes.

Also your argument supposed that anyone who was working in a group in a work environment wanted to be there. This is not true. There are tons of people who hate their jobs. You said that, conversely, there is no expectation that participants in a group task in college actually want to be there. My total fees every year of school were $40,000+. Do you honestly think that there are people going to colleges like that who don't want to be there? If you had experience to support your assumption that there are always stragglers in group work at colleges, that would be one thing, but you have none, so your argument falls flat.

Last edited by srussell0018 on Jun-11-2011 at 23:14

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Originally posted by srussell0018 I like it? Also your argument supposed that anyone who was working in a group in a work environment wanted to be there. This is not true. There are tons of people who hate their jobs. You said that, conversely, there is no expectation that participants in a group task in college actually want to be there. My total fees every year of school were $40,000+. Do you honestly think that there are people going to colleges like that who don't want to be there? If you had experience to support your assumption that there are always stragglers in group work at colleges, that would be one thing, but you have none, so your argument falls flat.

Again you obviously failed to read my argument. They aren't long really... Are you that lazy?

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby I know thats not often a choice in real life, but in real life, if you are working in a group it is usually amongst your intellectual peers, and it is a job, where failure is usually not an option (where it is often an option in school). If you have someone who is incompetent at work in your group you basically can have them moved off the project and reprimanded (unless they are your boss... ). There is just more motivation to be competent, and if you are not competent enough, the motivation is there to bring yourself up to speed ASAP.

Fear of reprimand and loss of your job is what makes people who do not want to be there do their work. If they don't do it then they should (and a lot of times usually are) fired.

There are plenty of people that go to an undergraduate education and do not want to be in class, especially if they are GE classes unrelated to their studies. If everyone wanted to do their best in college, then you'd probably see the number of alcohol related deaths drop.

You are making broad assumptions about entire groups, and putting a finite definition to their motivations. At least my argument takes into account, that yes, there are a lot of people that do want to put in the effort to do well, but there are also a lot that do not care. If you have only run into those people that 100% care about what they are doing then, wow you are lucky.

On the psychology note, you like psychology, interesting.

Do psychologist not have any merit when explaining things to patients because they have never experienced those things themselves? With your reasoning I could abstract that all psychologists should be raped, have a significant love one killed, be abused as a child, and suffer any and all of the things that they are trained to diagnose right? Because they haven't experienced it themselves they obviously have no idea what they are talking about? No amount of research, other experiences, or intuition, logical thought, or accounts of others could compensate for that lack of personal experience... At least thats what I deriving from your reasons why my arguments are invalid.