I’m in uni and for one of my modules we were assigned a group project worth 50% of the final grade. We were given 8 weeks to complete it.
My group had 7 people, the assignment was to choose a policy issue create a campaign leaflet with 3 campaigns, one short term, one medium term, and one long term.
The group created three ‘sub groups’ with two people each except for the long term, which had three since it required more writing/research.
The assignment brief said that the short term page should have ‘as few words as possible’ and that the whole thing must be ‘visually appealing’. Because of this, about 3 weeks in, one of the girls (who I’ll call Chloe) who was in the short term group said she felt bad because she and her group partner (I’ll call her Layla) hadn’t contributed as much as the rest of us. Layla wasn’t at the seminar where conversation happened (and only went to 1 seminar for the duration of the assignment). Chloe told us that she would tell Layla what we ended up agreeing on, which was that the short term group would also create the design for the project.
Over time, Layla didn’t attend any seminars and complained about being given too much work. However, she hadn’t done anything after designing the cover page for the project, which contrasted greatly with the aesthetic of the rest of the project whilst also not matching the quality of Chloe’s design skills.
The day before the submission, we asked her for a 4th time to redesign the front cover, which she ignored. This led group members to redesign it instead.
The lecture that week was dedicated to the assessments for the module and the lecturer told us that if a group member hadn’t contacted us or contributed that their name didn’t have to be on the cover (all group members’ names had to be on the front page). Because of this, we decided as a group to remove Layla’s name because she hadn’t done anything we asked her to except design the cover page and ignored us when we asked her to change it. Since the final submission didn’t contain any of her work, we decided removing her was best. We warned her prior to submitting that we were doing this, which she ignored.
After submission, she complained to the lecturer, saying that we lied and that many of the things written in the submission were by her. She also said that we never ‘invited’ her to our seminars or told her that she needed to be in group meetings. However, all of that info was on the project group chat so we were left wondering if she meant that she expected one of us to message her separately to tell her that a group meeting meant the entire group or that she should go to the seminars that are required for the course. In our final presentation, the lecturer told us that she believed Layla’s name should be on the cover but Layla did end up saying a few things that contradicted what was in it after this so I think the lecturer ended up realising that she hadn’t read it.
So, am I the asshole?
NTA. I had a similar thing happen at uni where a group member came to the first meeting, agreed to work then ghosted us. He came to the tutorial for presentation but honestly I don’t think he even recognised us. We spoke to the lecturer and had his name removed. It’s entirely fair to do so, especially if notice is given
Definitely NTA. If she’s old enough to be in uni, she’s old enough to be considerate of others and realize she should’ve actively been checking in about the project herself. I mean 50% of the final grade is a wild thing to slack on lol…
NTA; you AND Chloe told her time and time again (and gave her chances) about the project and seminars. She did not listen, never showed up, AND had the nerve to complain about getting “too much work”… and you also said all she did was design the cover page which contrasted with pretty much everything else. Layla has the nerve to lie to the lecturer. I hope everyone else got their points and credit as needed, seeing as you guys did the work.
Yeah we got a 2:1 on the final project which is pretty decent for a group project so I’m not too butthurt about the whole thing
NTA. In the future, with any other projects of any kind, keep written documentation of instances where someone isn’t participating. It seems to be not so uncommon even in work places.
We do get to talk about our experiences in the project in the other assignment for the module but only 250 words and its supposed to be more self reflective
NTA
She didn’t do the work. She doesn’t get the credit
Unsolicited advice: be the confrontational one in group projects. Hold people accountable. Keep the receipts. Tell anyone that asks what is going on. Never, ever back down. Show all the facts. Don’t apologize for being truthful.
You will get a reputation of being the hard a** that makes people contribute or suffer consequences. This means people who also *want* to make the effort and succeed will flock to you, and the lazy ones who want to ride other’s coat tails will do everything they can to avoid you.
It made group projects a whole lot easier when I was in college.
NTA. Had this happen to me on several occasions and even had a group member’s only contribution to a “50% of grade” project be copy-pasting outdated information from a different iteration into an irrelevant section.
Going forward for group work I highly recommend doing group work using google docs/drive. It keeps track of who contributed what, when, and entirely erases any semblance of he said she said bs. Also useful to see if someone outright copy pasted bulk work from chatgpt in the event your group gets accused of academic misconduct, you can isolate the problem person and appeal to your profs.
NTA
Few things worse than group projects. One that is worse: people who skate and don’t contribute to the group project.
My last year of college I was severely mentally ill but didn’t know it. I was the person who contributed basically nothing to a project—I barely made it to class once a week by that point. Even at the time I felt bad about it, and I’ll probably always feel guilty.
I’m not defending or excusing your classmate. If they did no work they earned no credit. NTA.
Your teacher is the AH for assigning a group project!
NTA
Layla- FAFO