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.

Finally Home

One thing you'll find in college is that if you were like me, you took your hometown for granted. I just got back for thanksgiving break today, and it feels great.

You see I come from a pretty small town. There's not much to do here, so all throughout high school I was real bored with it. Besides school and sports, it was just sitting around. Real boring.

Not too sound pompous or anything, but I had a lot of friends... and now that I've been gone for so long, it felt real good to see all of them.

Unlike last time, all of my flights made good time so I got home at a normal pace so that was all good. Another thing I've learned is that for people who go home by flight, it is important to give an extra day in your travels. Especially on the way back. If you want to be back at school for classes on a Monday, plan to fly in on a Saturday. You will lose a day of break, but if you plan to fly in on a Sunday and your flight gets delayed you might miss some classes. This is just a safer method I believe.

So I am good sitting here at home, and I'm going to leave you here cause it feels good to be able to shower in my own bathroom now and I wish to go obtain that feeling.