Group projects have become a notorious part of high school. When it comes to these projects, it’s one thing to be assigned to work in groups with friends and another to be with a group of strangers.

With friends, there’s a better understanding of how each other works. Working with strangers, however, is a more ambiguous situation. You don’t know what the others are capable of doing, or even if they’ll take the work seriously.

Either way, you would expect that project work would go smoothly, and that everyone would do their own share of work. After all, group projects are supposed to be about working together to get work done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don’t always go according to how you’d want and it ends up being a one person effort.

It’s frustrating and annoying when other group members opt to goof off and procrastinate instead of getting work done. Even if they actually get something done, they end up doing it incorrectly to the point that you have to redo it for them. If you want to make a decent grade, you are left to do a majority, if not all, of the work.

Whether it’s a friend or a classmate, laziness and sloppiness are still not acceptable.

Plus, when it’s time for the project to be finished and presented, the people who didn’t do any work are adamant in taking credit for stuff that they didn’t even do, and even dare to criticize what has been done.

So, instead of getting all of the credit, as deserved, you have to share it with the people that didn’t do a thing to help.

All in all, it’s ridiculous how group projects turn out. In a way, the slackers are being encouraged to keep up their procrastinating and lazy ways and that’s not right.

They should be made to do the work that they refused to do, and if not, then they shouldn’t be able to take credit for someone else’s efforts.

Instead of group work, students could do individual assignments; packets or poster boards about certain topics. This would create no unnecessary worry about individuals doing their share of work or having to do the work instead. That way, it would work out for everyone.