Student Life at USM? - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: May 2, 2006

Student Life at USM?

Date: May 2, 2006

Reporter wrote:

Opinions College dorm noise ‘how inconsiderate’ By Porsha Jackson http://www.studentprintz.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/05/02/445701e943d7b "I’ve also noticed the complaints about partners not helping on a group projects. ... Many are stuck doing projects on their own because their partners are lazy bums who don’t want to show up to meetings to at least contribute a thought if nothing else. Imagine doing a 20-page paper and presentation on your own when it is supposed to be a group project. I have never had this happen to me, but from what I hear it’s definitely not fun. Try having your partner try to get credit for something they know darn well they didn’t do. Slackers, if you don’t care about your grades, then ask the professor to be dropped from the group, but don’t risk the grades of others. Again, I have two words to sum it all up - how inconsiderate."

Sadly, that is the way it is in the real world too. In the corporate world, when interviewing potential employees right out of college, I always used to ask how they handled this situation. Very few of us go through life without having this happen to us. Do you confront the slacker, go to the professor or boss, just do the work yourself? This will continue to happen in the business world, so how students handle it is a good indicator of how they will handle it in the future. My favorite answer came from a young man who had been in the army before going to college. He said, "In the military, you just do it. Lives depend on you, so you just do it. Afterwards, you address the problem with the person who didn't pull their weight and you make it clear to them that their work ethic is unacceptable and will not be tolerated." I hired him and he was extremely successful!

Date: May 2, 2006

This is why I never do group projects. If I did, I would have a evaluation procedure the group members couls use that would identify the slackers and I would they would fail on the project. The reason that students are able to do this is that faculty are not doing their job.

Date: May 2, 2006

Advocate, you are right.

I stayed late tonight to help my team put together a display for a big conference tomorrow. There are six of us in the team, three of us stayed to finish it. Two of the others had to leave, and one wasn't even in town today (we work for a school district and aren't always at the office in fairness to the one). I stayed almost 2 hours past closing to help. My supervisor looked at me and said you don't have to stay, and I said, yes I do. This is a job that needs to be done and I'm part of this team. And as a tidbit of information, I to am an Army vet. Yeah, you do what has to be done, then you chew ass.