'This has been a learning experience: Clueless project member gets failed for lack of contribution

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Oct 8, 2023 9:00 AM EDT

It's no secret at this point that most people deride group projects, which are often little more than an excuse by the teacher to make students occupy each other rather than have to teach for that week. But, fair enough, it's a lot of work having a lesson planned for every single day of the week. Especially when that's in addition to actually teaching and then grading that lesson. Teachers deserve the breathing space, and putting a bit of the onus of their own education onto the students isn't necessarily a bad thing.

But, the problem with group projects is a problem with human nature. Spreading enough of the responsibility for something across a large enough group means that no one feels, well, responsible for it. It's one of the reasons why leadership programs teach you to make sure that you're designating an "owner" of any task you're delegating. 

In true group project fashion, there's always at least one person in the group who doesn't pull their weight. These computer science students managed to get back at theirs by ensuring that he didn't get any credit for the project. 

This story had mixed responses, with some readers commenting that the OP sounded a little full of themself, which adds another interesting element to this thread.

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  • 01
    Computer - - w DEANNARD
    via Mohammad Rahmani
  • 02
    Font - Posted by u/angelinamercer 6 hours ago the good old github trick - to not let the leech profit off of our hard work. in my junior year of college, while studying computer science and engineering in one of the top schools in my country, i had these classes called occupational electives. basically introduction to specialized fields in computer science, so you can build the skills for your future career. kids who are taking these classes generally tend to know which industry they are going i
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 03
    Font - problem is, while these classes are advised for juniors and higher, sophomores and even some students with different study plans (ex. those who have transferred from very different majors or lower ranking universities with different academic plans) can take them too. this means that some students aren't on par with the rest of us, simply because they are just in an earlier place in their computer science careers.
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 04
    Font - so i took a system programming class. because i want to be a software engineer. not that it's important, but for non computer science folk - basically, most applications of today are designed in two parts, client side and server side, and operate on how two interact with each other. you learn this model in depth and also have to make a fully functional web application, with your own ideas, and have to present it to the class at the end of semester to have it work properly, to pass.
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 05
    Font - i got stuck with a bad group, of course, given that i have a story here. a special student like i mentioned before, a transfer girl who was nice to me in another class asked to team up, because she knew she would struggle without someone like me who studied the curriculum in order. and well, i didn't want to leave her alone, she's a nice girl. the problem is, she brought 4 more strugglers with her. but the subject of the revenge is only one of those strugglers. this guy, let's
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 06
    Font - call him Bro, honestly, simultaneously managed to give me both "i have a curfew at 6 pm because my mom is overbearing" and "i smoked too much weed and fell asleep at the nearby park's benches last night and i am hungover rn" vibes at the same time. i don't know how else explain it. this guy was the biggest airhead. so bc i had an outline of a plan from an idea i had before, i took the lead on the on the project and proposed that we make a workout app, an easy concept with little module pl
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 07
    Font - • be the group leader design logos and draw sketches for the client side • prepare a slideshow for the presentation • do the work distribution stuff himself (HOW?!), and write the initial report of group work distribution and our initial project plan (WHICH WAS ALREADY GIVEN TO THE PROFFESSOR BY THEN - along with our design sketches!!) ● • be assigned as the group presenter at all our meeting with the professor (while missing so many of our meetings??)
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 08
    Font - and then he claimed that since he did not know any programming languages yet, so he couldn't help with programming, so he had to do this additional stuff to contribute. Bro just wants to play with colors in ppt and word basically. and, mind you, Bro was an ordinary student like me. he should at least be proficient with java or python by now, w our uni curriculum. not to mention, everybody else other than us two are the ones actually not knowing any languages but with my direction they all
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 09
    Font - so, after that disastrous meeting, the nice girl apologized to me a thousand times. and i got mad for her sakes. so in another meeting, which he missed because he overslept, i added our project to github. which, for the non cs folk again, is a coding social media with a feature to track who changed what line of code precisely, like google docs of code.
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 10
    Font - and we all tried for Bro. we really did. offered to study javascript with him, set up coding study dates at the library multiple times where he no showed. Bro literally couldn't even accept my github invite to our project. he was that bad at things. and he still asked if the final presentation ppt could be his part in the project. i legit said no to him. if you don't work hard like the rest of us at the not fun part of things, i am gatekeeping the fun slideshow - playing around with the c
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 11
    Font - we showed up at the last week of class for the presentation. all 5 of us. YES, he had once again overslept. when the professor called on us, he asked for him, and everyone said "we don't know". because we had all gave up on forcing him to be a responsible adult at this point. in the middle of our presentation, which was going awesome since everyone had worked to hard on it and learned a lot from the project, so we all had a lot to say, Bro bursts into class and realizing that we were alre
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 12
    Font - "he did not contribute sir. you can see everyone's contribution amount in the detailed project plan all 5 of us put together, plus if you follow the github link, you can see that only we made changes to the project." and of course, the professor sees at least one or two cases like these at every single class every semester. he just nods and writes down into his notes. tells us he will check github and if it is true, that's a zero for him and failing the class. pro revenge complete.
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 13
    Font - our app was very buggy though, so we got a 65 on that project, and of course the professor said he was very impressed with the aesthetic choices we made on both the reports and the front-end (all thanks to me just letting myself play with the colors throughout the project, lol). after we all got out of the classroom, you know what Bro does? he comes up to us and says this: "man, that presentation was awesome. i think i'm gonna retake this class next semester, the topic was really interest
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 14
    Font - he shakes everyone's hand and disappears. man, i just hope, wherever he is, Bro is doing well in life. Imao. i wonder if he graduated yet. either way, best group project group i've been a part of. our app was really amateurish though, lol, it sucked a
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 15
    Font - fjzappa 5 hr. ago Bro is working in technical sales now. Making promises that others have to work all- nighters to keep. Making big $$ off of the sales while his clueless bosses keep claiming to their bosses that they have a real superstar on their team. 227 Reply Share angelinamercer OP . 5 hr. ago lol, i hope he is happy w his life though Reply Share 56
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 16
    Font - ExcitingTabletop · 4 hr. ago Sadly yeah, guy will probably land in sales. Confidence combined with incompetence is unfortunately a common negative stereotype of sales. The ability to take rejection in stride is a more positive stereotype. I do feel for whoever has to carry that guy, and hope someday he figures things out. 37 Reply Share
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 17
    Font - Kodiak01 4 hr. ago Bro missed the first three meetings. when he showed up, he asked to contribute to the parts i had already done. which were: be the group leader design logos and draw sketches for the client side prepare a slideshow for the presentation do the work distribution stuff himself (HOW?!), and write the initial report of group work distribution and our initial project plan (WHICH WAS ALREADY GIVEN TO THE PROFFESSOR BY THEN - along with our design sketches!!) be assigned as the
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 18
    Font - Jedi NinjaGuy 5 hr. ago Dude. You just witnessed a true CEO out in nature. Rare find to catch a fledgling in its natural environment like that. 25 Reply Share
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 19
    Font - HardButter 5 hr. ago So he never showed up and did no work and got a zero. He may have to take the class again? Not really pro, he legitimately didn't even know you had this revenge and no real consequences besides taking a class again. Reply Share 60 angelinamercer OP. 5 hr. ago hmm, i see a lot of stories with the same context, github exposes the lazy student, so i thought i'd share :/ thanks for reading though<3 hope you enjoyed?... Reply Share 47
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 20
    Font - Techn0ght 46 min. ago Make sure to make your github project private so Bro doesn't copy it and present it as his own for next year. 3 ↓ Reply Share
    via u/angelinamercer
  • 21
    Font - SephariusX 5 hr. ago Jesus, OP. I had to stop reading because you're such a narcissist. 11 ↓ Reply Share ewhim 5 hr. ago edited 5 hr. ago I powered through because there were so many great nuggets - the kicker here is that despite her inflated opinion of herself and her skillz, she still got a sho grade on her group project. Reply Share 34
    via u/angelinamercer

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