There is a reason I never write horror stories. Cliches aside, I tend to not focus on what most normal people find scary. Ghosts? Meh. Zombies? Boring. Vampires? Too sparkly. What really makes my knees quake and my blood run cold is far more commonplace than any monster Frankenstein could make — group projects.

I fear I will never understand the value of a group project.

I’m not talking about pairing off and doing work. I find that writing in pairs often benefits both parties. I’m talking about the groups of five — for some reason, it’s always five — students randomly shoved together to do a project that ends up being a major part of the final grade. These have never worked out for me. The best scenario ends with two people doing all the work; the worst ends with one person hurriedly throwing something together hours before the deadline. I have never been in a group of more than two people doing work for a grade that worked out well.

I should mention the exception to this is study groups. I’ve been in groups that were assigned to study together, and those usually worked out. Each person submitted their own work, so the grade wasn’t reliant on the group’s ability to do the work.

I understand the appeal of assigning group work; there are definitely real-world lessons to be learned from working with others. However, we are adults. We should have learned how to be responsible long before college. It scares me that this seems to not be the case.

Yes, this method may weed out those who would be a bad fit for the line of work they are going into. Yes, this method may force introverts like me to accept the reality of needing to be able to work with people. But when a single grade is applied to a group of people, I struggle to find this useful. If I did all the work, I don’t deserve the same grade as those who did none of it. In a way, this makes me harder to work with. I tend to get a bit controlling in group work simply because I’ve had so many bad experiences with it. I’d love to believe that being responsible for others’ grades would motivate everyone to pull their own weight, but I have never seen this actually play out.

The teachers who do group evaluations at the end of the project seem to understand this, especially when the evaluations are kept confidential. These are the places where I have a bit of hope restored in group work. Not only can I report Johnny Slacker for not doing his share, I can praise Sally Dogood for going above and beyond. These teachers seem to know what’s up.

They understand that group work teaches life skills but may not be fair to the individual students. Remembering that teachers like this exist allows me to focus on far less scary monsters like werewolves.

Kjerstine Trooien is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at kjerstine.trooien@my.und.edu.