I was, at the beginning of this class. I loved it when everyone was together. I think the dynamic of the three of us working together worked really well.
I am not a fan now. Why? Because they have no idea how to do it, and refuse to do the reading to find out.
We needed to create an index. So, they went through and put down ont he list for the index every solid noun. I was supposed to turn the list into a working online indext, but am instead going over all the files and getting the index words myself. That's okay, except the reason it was done so badly (twice. I made them redo it the first time, but it didn't help) is because the loudest group member proudly proclaims that she never does any of the reading.
Well, yes, that would explain why you don't know what you are doing.
"I don't know what you are looking for." RTBM and find out!!! You're trying to become a technical writer - why is that is a difficult concept!?!
I was very tempted to give them the book and have them read it, but am now wondering how much of the teacher I am supposed to be. This is why I hate group work - you have to figure out how to deal with people. One of the many, many things I like about my current job is that I am usually the only one working on my sections, so I need to coordinate, but am not responsible for theirs.
*frustrated*
[ May 11, 2005, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Stab them?
Group work does suck. While you aren't supposed to be the teacher, I wonder if somehow you're the natural leader of the group. Do the others know more than the loud person?
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Group projects are invariably lame unless you can choose to work with people you already know and trust.
What does that "B" stand for?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
My guesses: Blessed or Blasted. I'm going with Blasted as first guess.
(kat) Sucks that your dealing with this crap. I think it's harder to go back to school and deal with groups when you're used to being in the workforce, where if someone's incompetant they can at least lose their job over it.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
*hugs*
I'm better. We traded. I'll create the index and the web site and do all the technical things (I can't believe I'm in this position - I don't like computers), and they are handling the next phase in all its aspects. Plus, I don't have to pay for dinner. Yay!
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Hey, speaking of dinner, do you want to come over for leftovers tomorrow night?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Yes, that would be fabulous!
I'm sorry I missed Emma's birthday party - I'm still here, chained to my computer.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Awesome. It's not a problem you missed it, although it was very cute to see her eating cake and trying to figure out ice cream. {It's good, but cold!) We have some of everything left, although more of some than others, so you'll get to try any of it you want to. Just give me a call tomorrow after church.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
Commencing commiseration.
I hated group projects in school. I've come to realize that there are a lot of real workplace situations that those group projects do help prepare you for. Dealing with coworkers not pulling their share, needing unreasonable amounts of leadership and hand-holding, or just being general idiots.
What I've learned? That I hate those real workplace situations, too.
Enigmatically Yours, me
Posted by Dragon (Member # 3670) on :
I so agree.
But also, Enigmatic is right, but at least now you'll have had practice in hating group projects...
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It's like the time I had the e-commerce internship my senior year of college. The outgoing president got a friend to donate $50,000 to the cause of creating an e-commerce site for Cache Valley. Not the bookstore, because that was a separate business, but for the county. The business and English departments agreed to it because 40% of the money would go to their pet projects (they were bribed). 40% went to two interns for the year, and 20% went to the project.
So, I and a business doctoral student were to create this together. I was the only female, the only person without a graduate degree, and the only one under 35. I'm fairly hard-headed, but I was there to learn and to create something, so I tried to pay attention.
In a year, it never got off the ground. The business doctoral student was one other singularly most unpleasant people I have ever encountered. In meetings with the board, he kept referring to me as "Nichole", the baby sitter who lived down the street. He steadfastly refused to look or consider any of my designs, and suggested I would be best employed copy-editing while he did all the original content.
After three months of this (and of the faculty overseers trying to ignore us while they spent the other money), I was willing to go along with anything reasonable just to get SOMETHING off the ground and working.
Except.
His design for the e-commerce site was done in Flash. FLASH. There were no menus and no searches - instead, the products appeared in a slideshow, and you clicked the image when it appeared. If you missed it, you had to wait for the slideshow to look over again. The site was designed as red text on black, with the occasional blinding white slides. If a user by sheer accident did stumble on to a product page, they'd discover that EVERY PRODUCT HAD ITS OWN MIDI THEME SONG.
<insert five months of wrangling>
No, the site never appeared. We never agreed on a design. He refused to even consider mine, and while I try to be flexible and by the end had ceased to care, I'd kiss a wookie before I agreed with his. So, it never happened, we collected our stipends, and the new university president put it out of its misery, much to everyone's relief. I believe the exact phrase the president used was "Let's put a stake in the heart of this walking dead."
I learned a great many things in that internship (first that hysterical laughter during board meetings is a bad sign). I didn't actually want to know any of it. *sigh*
[ April 17, 2005, 12:38 AM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Ugh. Indexing is beastly enough, so I can't imagine how much worse it would be to have to do it in a group project. You have my sympathies, Katie.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:His design for the e-commerce site was done in Flash. FLASH. There were no menus and no searches - instead, the products appeared in a slideshow, and you clicked the image when it appeared. If you missed it, you had to wait for the slideshow to look over again. The site was designed as red text on black, with the occasional blinding white slides. If a user by sheer accident did stumble on to a product page, they'd discover that EVERY PRODUCT HAD ITS OWN MIDI THEME SONG.
Arrrrgggggghhhhh! I had so many fights with graphic designers before CSS was on enough browsers to allow pixel-perfect (mostly) design. They would always want to make text into graphics so they could make designs that absolutely depended on everything being the exact same size on every browser.
Which means no user resizing, no cut and paste, no reasonable ability to generate the page entirely from the database. Drove me nuts.
There are plenty of designs that easily survive the minor shifting that took place across different browsers. And none of our customers wanted to pay for a day's graphical tweaking on every page to satisfy some masochistic need to treat the web as if it were the printed page.
Dagonee *This rant not aimed at graphic designers who were actually good at web design.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
The girl who proudly never does the reading and does as little as possible just saved her entire half of the project as a series of separate template pages, instead of as HTML files that use the template.
This is apparently my fault for not telling her how to do it right.
The other girl had no problems.
We have a presentation in three hours. >_<
Posted by whiskysunrise (Member # 6819) on :
Good luck.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I don't have time to do her work over again - I need to do my own work. I didn't budget in time to do the work of someone who refuses to use the help to make sure that what looks like it is not working is working right.
WHY CAN'T SHE USE THE HELP? We are WRITING a HELP SYSTEM!
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
She can be your example of what happens when you don't use the help system?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I want to make her an example of something. >_<
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Be glad.
I watched one poor girl try and write a code project with three other members that were exclusively dead weight.
On the morning of the presentation, only one team member showed up. Three hours late.
The poor girl had an anxiety attack in the hallway and was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation.
Did I mention this was a make-or-break class for the program?
-Trevor
Posted by no. 6 (Member # 7753) on :
quote: I want to make her an example of something.
Well, lady, if you want to be public about it, I suggest drawing and quartering.
But cyanide is so much more discreet! Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
kat, it's against most people's religion to look at help files. It's an obscure religion, but I've noticed that it has an unbelievably large congregation.
I have a user at a customer site that told me, after insisting that I fly the umpteen thousand miles to listen to her complaints face-to-face, that she can't be bothered with reading the help files. She has much too much work to do to mess around with learning how to use the program. She just wants me to tell her how to do what she needs to do, and preferrably before she needs to do it so that she doesn't get into a bind for time. Psychic support helpline, that's me!
Which reminds me of the stupid question that a passenger on the cruise we took for spring break asked: "Would it be possible for me to get off the ship early so I can watch us dock?" Posted by whiskysunrise (Member # 6819) on :
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Sure - toss them over the side with a life jacket and a paddle.
-Trevor
Posted by rav (Member # 7595) on :
I read help files all the time. (note: I am also one of those people that if I go into a store and can't find what i'm looking for within 5 minutes I ASK SOMEONE.) What I hate is companies that close all of thier documentation unless you are paying them a support fee. How am I supposed to fix stuff for clients if they won't give me any support information to get the information I need to fix thier problem? /rant
Kat: Good luck, don't be the person to MAKE her an example, let her be that person. Do what you need to do, and do it well. That way the other person will still want to work with you, not having fear like "If I mess up she's going to make an example of me." . .02
[ April 21, 2005, 10:55 PM: Message edited by: rav ]
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Group projects are the bane of my existence. I've been fortuate to find a group of good students who are taking many of the same classes as me to work with...
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
*hugs everyone* It worked out. It was a presentation and not the final project, so I spent the afternoon fixing the pages and doing the index, and they spiffied up the sections we were presenting. If the users veered off the path at all we were toast, but they didn't, so it was okay. We ended up getting full points for this step in the project, so I'm left to wonder if we were better than I thought or if the bar is just really low.
I have also decided that group projects are graded more gently than individual ones. It's the only thing that makes sense.
On the other hand, there was a nice design. Never underestimate the power of a clean design and consistent use of fonts and styles. Even when it was crap, the nice design made it look like the crap was accidental but the prettiness was all planned. The medium is message, again. I'm so ashamed.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Do what you gotta do.
-Trevor
Posted by whiskysunrise (Member # 6819) on :
I'm glad it worked out for you.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Just in case anyone remotely cared, we did well on our project, I got an A in the class, and the teacher expressed to me her dissapointment that not everyone in the group shared the technical aspects equally, because the other two didn't learn anything. Then she thanked for me taking on the responsibility, so I guess she doesn't blame me for it.
I was horrified at first to discover that I really wanted to get an A in the class. What happened to me? I used to care only about whether or not I learned anything, not about the actual grades. Grades aren't a measure of what you have learned or your competence - they measure how well you buy into the system and play the game.
I feel slightly better when I consider two things, but only barely: (1) grad classes are different - no stupid busywork, so it is a better measure, and (2) maybe this is like my Latin classes, where it is just downright shameful to make anything less than an A considering it is "my thing."
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Sounds like the teacher knew exactly what was going on...
AJ
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Hooray! Glad to hear it turned out OK for you, Katie:) Also glad to hear your teacher recognized your extra work.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Savvy teacher. Cool. Congrats on doing well, Katie.
[ May 11, 2005, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
I'm glad it worked out well for you, despite the stress/stupidity/laziness of the others. Yay! for being over. Yay!
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Woohoo!!
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Grades aren't a measure of what you have learned or your competence - they measure how well you buy into the system and play the game.
Holy cow. You're channeling Irami.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
More like this is one of the reasons Irami and I were friends. Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Were?
Grades share many of the same qualities as money. Subordinating the task of education or life to the service of either grades or money seems small and misguided. They are convenient measures, and sometimes they are even appropriate. But judging anyone's quality or even fitness to perform merely by their GPA or net worth, no matter how convenient, neat, and mathmatical, seems misguided.
Both money and grades share the common quality of appearing as objective standards, when I think the truth is that too many people are all under the sway of the subjective myth that grades and money are objective standards.
In a way, our sharing the same myth, even as that myth pertains to grades and money, makes us one people. But I'm getting too far afield.
I'm not saying that we should abolish either, both are useful depending on the context, I just don't worship-- or even decide anything truly important- on the basis of either.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
I've always wanted to say this:
I graduated from Berekeley with a 3.94.
Of course, I'm not doing so well when it comes to the money thing so I guess it all evens out.
But seriously:
I think that it's this:
quote:(2) maybe this is like my Latin classes, where it is just downright shameful to make anything less than an A considering it is "my thing."
I look at the 'A's and the 'B's I received, and none of them really match up to each other well. I'm much prouder, for instance, of the A I got in a class on Kafka [which was quite difficult] than the one I got in a class on early 20th century literature [for which I wrote one of my papers in less than three hours -- it was utter dreck but the grad assistant like it].
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:Berekeley with a 3.94
You used four "e"s and transfered in. Nobody takes junior transfers seriously. If you weren't hungry enough when you were fifteen and in there as a freshman, then you don't count.
I do think that grades are a mark of something, somthing more than just a willingness to buy into the system, I just don't know what they show. It's not easy to get all "A"s even if you only care about the grade.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Heh. The trust fund and scholarship babies did seem pretty annoyed that this lowly junior transfer outshined them in every class discussion and could grasp theory *way* quicker than they could. Heck, I'm pretty sure that I didn't even submit my SAT scores [which weren't that great -- because, you know, my family couldn't afford to pay for prep classes].
Of course, this *was* the English department. And I hadn't had to endure two years of disgruntled and bitter grad assistants pounding the idea of the ideal "Berkeley essay" into me. ;-)
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
quote:I just don't know what they show.
I think in my case, they showed that I was spoiled. I could have only done it as an English major -- where (for the most part) my risks when writing essays were generally rewarded -- even when the experiment didn't totally succeed.
I only got slapped down once for it -- by the grad student who I then turned the 3-hour essay in to [the experiment got me a B-, the dashed off work got me an A]. Guess which essay style stayed with me in later classes and in grad school.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
If you count only my language and humanities classes, I had a 3.95 in college. If you add in my math and science classes, it drops to a 3.6.
I am tremendously more proud of my A- in organic chemistry than I am of the A's in my English classes.
Still, then I was getting grades for two very specific purposes: to keep my scholarship, and to be able to get into medical school. They weren't quite high enough to get into med school, I don't think - I didn't apply, but I think schools look at just your science GPA and that hovered somewhere are 3.2, so that's not good enough. If I ever change my mind about applying, I'll have to retake some classes. Anyway, I had no problem getting good grades then, because I had specific purposes in mind.
This time, it's just for self-affirmation. Or maybe impressing the teacher, and that's almost worst. I don't believe in it as a measurement in success in life, so I'm really troubled by my delight in getting an A. Worst of all, I want to keep getting more of them, and I'm not sure why. I'm afraid it's a sign of having invested in the system, and that bothers me.
Take all the above, and apply it to money. Earning money for a specific purpose: good, fine. Earning money as a method of score-keeping or self-affirmation: very, very bad.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm going with Blasted as first guess.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Group Hug]](graemlins/grouphug.gif)
Good luck.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
. .02![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)