Teamwork

There are a lot of jobs in the real world where you need to work as a group or a team. That's why in college you will find a lot of your work is done in teams. Especially in the science and engineering fields, teamwork is extremely important.

Being able to work as a team is both a blessing and a curse. You get to bounce ideas off each other, you usually have less work, and it's a little more enjoyable. It's great because your supposed to be able to get more work done in a less amount of time.

This is not the case for me. You see, in one of my engineering courses we were put in teams at the beginning of the semester. This team was as good as I could have asked for. Everyone was intelligent and helpful and did what they could to make sure we got our work done. We were cruising, and I was happy with the way things were going.

Then disaster struck.

We were put in new teams. These new teams were not as much of a blessing. More of a curse. These are four person teams, and mine is basically a two person team. Me and another kid work hard and we do what we need to do, but the other two are non-existant. We don't even know one of their names. He doesn't show up for class or lab or anything. The other kid always has a excuse as to why he's not there.

So here's the deal, you need to be prepared for the good and the bad. You could get placed in a good team or in a disaster team. If your in a good team, then your lucky. But if your in a bad team, here are some things you could do to make it a good team.

1) You could always pull the fourth grade trick and tell the instructor. Simple, yet probably productive. You could get new teammates or the teacher could scare the others into participating.

2) Try and handle it yourself. Talk to the team members who aren't participating, tell them that you need them to work. Tell them that it's important towards all of our grades that everyone participates.

3) If nothing else, just keep moving on without them. This is what me and the one person who worked with me did. Just do what you got to do, get yours, and don't worry about the others.

While we did the third option, I don't think it's the smartest one. Since we're all in college and supposedly grown up and mature, the second is probably the best option.

So when you do get put in a group, hopefully I helped. And if I did, I will be oh so touched if you e-mail me and let me know.