I am in a university class where we had a group project worth a big part of our grade. The group had four people including me. Let’s call them Alex, Sam, and Jordan.
From the beginning, I ended up doing most of the work. I made the outline, did most of the research, wrote the majority of the report, and kept reminding everyone about deadlines. The others would say they would help but either submitted very little or nothing. I asked multiple times in our group chat if we could split the work more evenly and explained I was overwhelmed, but nothing really changed.
A few days before the deadline I was stressed and worried about the quality of the final submission. I told the professor privately that the workload had not been shared equally and explained who did what. I did not ask for punishment, just that grading reflect individual contribution.
My group found out and were very upset. They said I should have handled it internally and that I betrayed them by going to the professor instead of protecting the group. Now things are very tense and they say I made them look bad.
From my perspective, I felt it was unfair to carry everything and still receive the same grade as people who barely contributed. But I also feel guilty because I know group work is supposed to involve trust and maybe I escalated things instead of trying harder to fix it within the group.
AITA for telling the professor about the unequal work distribution?
No you are not in the wrong since you said you already talked to them and tried to solve it internally but they didn’t change if they didn’t care about the Grade or the work from the start why they care now
NTA. Group projects are not charity. If people do not work they should not get credit.
nta. you did try to resolve it with them. repeatedly. they proved they can’t be trusted to actually follow through on the things they say they’ll do, and speaking with the professor was really your only option.
(other than the secret option your group wanted you to take, which was to do all the work and let them benefit from it.)
if telling the truth makes them look bad, they need to fix some stuff about themselves, not shame *you* for it.
Nah, NTA. I’ve had (unfortunately) several times told on lazy work teams with my teachers when I was at uni. People keep thinking they’re still at school, and you are allowed to point out unfairness. If you had evidence they were consistently ignoring you, it is not your fault they are terrible at team work and that a teacher decides they do not deserve a good grade.
NTA – but whether or not it matters depends on the description of how grades are distributed for your subject.
Professor here. We are very familiar with this issue. When we write things together, there are ways to describe the work load. nr 1 is who is first author. Then the authors come in descending rank according to contribution. If this is a book, having a foreword that describes the efforts of each author is a common strategy. Further, if a joint work is used for a job application, they ask co-authors to sign a statement that describes the individual effort.
We also know very well that students do not contribute equally, and are not shocked by something like a student telling us they are frustrated by the effort of others. Sometimes we can do something to reflect it, sometimes we can’t, it is a matter of how the grades are supposed to be distributed – this will be in the subject description. For projects where collaboration and joint effort is an important aspect of the submission, I ask the students to log the work and also submit the log, so they can track who did what when.
NTA. yes team spirit is important and throwing your teammates under the bus is wrong, that’s not what happened here. You asked for help many times and sent several reminders. If they haven’t responded after that, it isnt your individual responsibility to keep trying to fix it. It is also true that if you did all the work, you do deserve better grades.
It’s always funny that the team members who don’t do anything go on about ‘team spirit’ and ‘teamwork’ like they aren’t disrespecting the ‘team’ by not contributing anything. OP definitely is NTA
NTA – consider this professional career training and a life lesson for the rest of the goup. Sure, some people get away with this in their jobs, but have seen plenty who don’t.
I’ve been in situations where I was the one doing the heavy lifting for a group project. But I’ve also been in situations where there is that one over-the-top, controlling micromanager in the group. The kind of person who insists on doing everything themselves then complains that they had to do everything themselves, and never considers any contribution from any other group member to be good enough.
So without more context, I’m going with ESH. Group work is hard, and the point is to work with people who don’t have the same work styles as you. You say you messaged them, but were those messages passive aggressive? Idk. I have no issue with you going to the professor if your group members really weren’t pulling their weight; but if I was the professor, I’d want to see the group’s agreed-upon work plan. I’d want to see each person’s well-defined role and their contribution. Because if you haven’t established this, then you are missing the point of group work.
NTA. You did try to handle it internally and it didn’t work. It was the right call to tell the professor. I had a similar issue in college. Told the teacher, they’d dealt with it before and knew what to do.
NTA, you communicated with them throughout the process. They look bad bc of their lack of effort.
NTA
OP you did try and sort things out internally. You told them that work needed to be split more evenly and that you were overwhelmed. That was their opportunity to do something.
But they didn’t. And they didn’t because they had no intention of doing anything. The real reason they are upset is not because you didn’t handle it internally (because you did try to do that) and not because you “betrayed” them. They’re upset because they got caught. They thought they could palm all the work off on you, and just do nothing. You showed them that it doesn’t work like that, and they got upset. You removed their free ride.
NTA. Same thing happened to me in college with a group project, one girl was never responded to us when we met up for work or wasn’t in class at all but showed up for the day of our presentation. I told my professor because it wasn’t fair that she got credit for the work me and two others put in.
NTA.
All of my recent group assignment we have had to state who did which part and rate each group members contributions to the proect.
Professors are aware of how groups run. Some universities have processes in place to accomodate different participation levels.