COLUMN: ‘Tis the season for the dreaded group project
It’s one of those things people just can’t escape – much like a pandemic or Facebook comments about the latest episode of “Glee.” It’s loved and anticipated by many a college student, and sheepishly despised by others.
It’s the sure symbol of tough decision-making and disregard for embarrassment. People do well to avoid it for fear others will see, but no one is safe.
Run, hide, try if you must – but over time you will be overtaken. From my mouth to heaven’s ears, you will be assigned to do a group video project.
Did I scare you there for a moment? I’m sure I did, and I can’t blame you. Video projects can easily be viewed as a most horrifying aspect of collegiate studies.
It combines the melting pot of great ideas with the fear of peers seeing you in a giraffe costume exclaiming, “and that’s why bi-partisan government, according to the textbook, is wiiild!” In many ways it is quite the spectacle.
Most every video project follows the same process. At first the adventure-seeking professor assembles everyone into random groups. You get situated into a group of four or five who sit together in a circle of desks and do their absolute best not to look each other in the eye.
The first three hours as a truth-seeking squad is mostly occupied by “brainstorming,” which encompasses one of the team members asking millions of questions while the rest of the group gives the most reliable response: “I don’t know.” This is generally followed by shrugging shoulders and texting people about “Glee.”
By the end of the first day, a team member has finally come up with a good idea for the project. Shock and awe! But don’t let that get you down, for you still have three weeks to hold the project to the absolute last minute.
The next several days are made up of a consistent barrage of dodging frequent phone calls and texts from the token overexcited team member who wants to meet in the library to talk about the project.
You respond that you are “busy,” which literally translates to either “with girlfriend,” or “at Arbys.” You use what’s left of your free time fulfilling your group assignment for the video, which in this case is meandering around the DI looking for clothes that will make your fellow team member look like economist John Maynard Keynes, even though you keep mistaking him for Teddy Roosevelt.
The rest of your week is booked with attempting to write scripts and a hearty exercise of eating corn dogs and determining which of your roommates looks the most like the Gerber baby.
This is usually when the chaos ensues. Before you know it, WHAM! It is two days before the project is due, and all your group has together is a team name and a Sesame Street clip you thought would be funny to use as an “ice breaker.”
It is now time to pull out the no-huddle offense. You meet with your group in a small apartment as soon as you get back from a three-hour drive home to grab that old camera in your family’s basement – not realizing the camera doesn’t work and you’ll have to settle for your roommate’s iPhone – prepared for the course-material-induced all-nighter of your life.
The duration of the evening kind of goes in a blur: Put on costumes. Pass out scripts. Start camera. Stop to giggle. Check first clip eight times. Start second clip. Giggle. Continue giggling.
Resume filming again until someone farts. Join in 20-minute long collective giggle. Change costumes. Cut out four scenes. Pizza break. Continue filming. Giggle. Talk about “Glee.” Change project idea. Smack guy who hasn’t stopped giggling since the farting incident. Finish filming.
Marathon over. Couple that with a morning laden with skipped classes and endless panicking over the videos not burning onto a disc, as well as not being able to sync the beginning of the video with “California Gurls” by Katy Perry, and you have got yourself a finished video project.
Now to commence curling up in your desk wondering what in tarnation you were thinking while everyone watches your video in class. Your video, though gripping, leaves only one final question, “why did we have Jeremy dress up as a mime again?”
It was embarrassing, but after that long haul of duty and stress, it may be the best B- you ever got. Lesson learned: next time, just choose to do a power point.
And for the record, what’s “Glee” even about anyway? Tinsel?
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