For goodness sake!

Group Assignments. You're missing a big chuck of education right there if you haven't gone through this. Education? What can I learn from a group assignment that I can't learn on my own?? Well, let me give you a hint... it starts with an A and it ends with an exclamation mark. Ideas? Ideas??

ATTITUDE!

Group assignments used to be my worst enemy. I hated it . I always thought doing things on my own would be wayyyyy easier. For one, you don't have to deal with other people's problem. Whether or not they can't tell the difference between "its" and "it's"; whether or not they take academic writing as serious as a gossip column; whether or not they think it's ok to start dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-ing every time they hit a conclusion; OR WORSE: whether or not they cite from wikipedia!!; you don't have to give a shit. Group assignments just make individual assignments look like Sunday afternoon :) ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Lol That's really how I felt in the first year until dot dot dot

I really couldn't do it on my own :'(

Come year 2 and every group assignment they give you required critical thinking, heavy research and every drop of brain juice you had to spare. It was just too much. You can't handle everything. Even if you think you're King of the World, you still won't be able to do everything! At least not as well as you could if you had only trusted your members. So now I don't rewrite my whole assignments anymore ☺ ☺ ☺ The burden on my shoulders seem to have been halved. I see ideas I've never seen clearer. And to be honest, grades are getting much better :D All I had to do was just trust.

The other thing I've learned from all this is empowerment. One cannot be selfish with one's knowledge. One cannot only think of oneself. And most of all, one cannot take it personal when it comes to business.

Some people I know get terribly upset when their work is being edited by others. This I just don't understand. For one, despite it being called group assignment, the lecturer is expecting to see a FLOW in your work. Not an art of collaboration. It's a collaboration among members that is suppose to produce ONE assignment, as if written by ONE person. In short >( you're suppose to combine your brains, not your writing technique.

I know, I know, it's your work and if it was my work that is being erased, I would definitely feel it too *punchpunch*. But it's call edit, my dear. And that just means rephrasing, not replacing. And imagine this, if just by rephrasing one sentence can make the assessor understand much better, therefore higher results... why is your ego denying this?

And actually what is the big deal? At the end of the day, you'll get to learn from your mistakes. A lesson you'll never get to learn in the working world. Here, now, your friends will still correct you but out there... your competitors will just let you out to die *proveninmovies*.

It really gets me upset when the people close to me don't see the advantages of group assignments. All they think about is "this is my time to shine," and if they don't find their footprint on that paper, it's a disaster =_=.

Sometimes when we are doing our individual assignment we have this problem call writer's block. It happens when you have no clue what to write or how to embellish what you have in front of you *speakingfromtrueexperience*. It doesn't matter how long you have looked at it; it doesn't get any better. And during that time, you'll just hope and wish that someone could read your work for you and tell you what to do, right?

So why is it that this we can embrace with ease but when in a group we cannot? :/

I used to have this idea in my head that we should NEVER work with friends because when it is time to be honest, you can never be... not entirely at least. But... BafAug09 has given something precious to me and they are friends who are truly good people. Not only are they humble enough to accept what's right but they are not afraid to tell you what's wrong with you. Also, I used to separate friends for jokes and friends for work but I really don't have to do that now :) :) :) because....... well.... we all want the same things. We all want the best we can achieve. And that's really very important when it comes to work; not the want-nothing-but-the-best part but having-the-same-goals...

... because would you really want to be that person who puts your friend in the position to choose between work and friendship?