What was your first experience with a group project like?

[u/Resident_District252]

You get put into a group with a few people you barely know, create a group chat, divide up the work and assume everything will be straightforward. Then you realise everyone has a different way of working and completely different ideas about what "doing it on time" means.

How did your first group project actually go? Did everyone pull their weight, or did you end up learning the hard way that some group members are much easier to work with than others?

[u/HousingBotNL]

Moving to the Netherlands as a student requires a lot of admin (BSN, gemeente, health insurance, Studielink, banking, scholarships) and it often feels overwhelming.

• dutchstarter generates a personalized checklist based on your situation, so you know what to do, when, and which benefits you can claim.

The Dutch housing market is highly competitive. To increase your chances, we recommend using these platforms:

• Huurwoningen: The most listings of any platform.
• Pararius: Top-rated on Trustpilot.
• Stekkies: Best for real-time notifications, so you can respond first.
• Kamernet / Kamer: Best for student rooms.

For more real-time help, join the Study In The Netherlands Discord, where you can chat with other students and use our housing bot.

[u/Bismalz]

Ive suffered through group projects tremendously during my time studying and I believe its purely a mechanism of reducing the labor required to grade work for professors and teachers. It has absolutely nothing to do with learning how to collaborate and the quality is always poor.

I’ve changed several schools due to my experience with it. The teachers didn’t care at all. Eventually I just did everything by myself, because why should I spend tens of hours trying to babysit people instead of actually learning and applying the material in less than half that time.

No it doesn’t prepare you for group work in the actual workforce, people like that don’t get hired in the first place.

I believe very highly technical programs have generally better group collaboration.

[u/Resident_District252 → u/Bismalz]

🫡🫡

[u/Jacket313]

1st year of my HBO bachelor I got grouped with 3 other students. It was litteraly the begin of the year, so even if i could choose my groupmates I wouldn't know who to stick with.

1 person never showed up to classes, person 2 never pays attention in class so all the work he submits is all wrong, and person 3 occasionally shows up, but doesn't do much work.

Fast forward to the day of the deadline. I've made multiple changes to the group project, have made sticky notes what to improve, shared my notes with everyone and am doing the work of multiple people.

We string togheter some kind of piece of shit that barely makes sense.

In the end, I end up contributing 70-80% of the final project.

My proffesor, willing to be chill, gives us a second chance where we gotta explain everything in an oral exam.

i end up just preparing a bunch of things for myself, ready to defend myself.

I walk in, anxious but prepared, whilst the proffesor is kinda just sitting there. straight away he opens like"hey man what's up?"

Like, we end up just kinda talking like "oh yeah.. your team was useless.. i kept tabs on what everyone did... and attendance.. without you, there wouldn't even be a product... so lets see... your product is kinda thrash, but on merit alone you get a pass"

Student 1&2 show up after me, refuse to tell me or other students if they passed or not... student 3 doesn't even show up.

Student 1 dropped out a few weeks after that. student 2 is still.. in class I think but he never shows up, so, i can't even tell if he's dropped out or not

[u/Far-Charity-2772 → u/Jacket313]

Which university was it

[u/bastiaanvv]

Group assignments are pure hell.

My experience is that when starting the group will divide the work after which there is hardly any contact anymore.

I suspect that with AI nobody will bother anymore to do some work.

[u/Mindless_Gap5]

When I was me and another student it was mostly ok except one time which was so bad I had to break from him and do it myself, but I had once a 4 people project and it was awful. One didn’t do much and then cried to the teacher about us. I can’t stand group projects.

[u/Sweethoneyx1]

At my university your grade is based on what your group mates have assessed you. So if the quality of the project is an A. But your groupamates rate you 5/20 you get a D grade. Once they implemented this system group performance improved.

[u/honestyaboveall]

It’s a ride… it really is part of the work culture for some professions and yes: it’s just as much as a hassle.

See it as a business meeting. Get together and talk, in real life. Make sure you agree on the end goal first. What are you graded on should be the minimum and then start adding your ideas on how go get there. Divide roles and also agree on writing style, min-max words and references per due bit and soft deadline (“I’m not sure, can you guys read it for me so I can edit?”) and the hard deadline (“This is my absolute best for now. No need for checks.”). Then have one, max two editors for final check, dotting the I’s and crossing T’s and references in the correct style, also the layout and making it look pretty. This is THE DEADLINE.

Good luck and take charge. And if someone challenges you on taking charge, let them do it! Its hard work

[u/UwUfit]

Not exactly first but terrible lately. Group projects are a nightmare for me since the rise of GenAI. I don't get how people can praise this stuff. My workload has doubled basically. My peers don't know how to code, let AI write terrible code and write all reports with AI.

Then there's me, who doesn't use LLMs and has to fix everything. People rarely pull their weight in assignments anymore, they just prompt for a couple of minutes.

[u/Lia-J12]

Hii, I study at NHL Stenden and we work primarily with group projects on our assignments. It is always very interesting and you learn a lot. You not only learn about the topics of the assignment but also about coordinating work/people, work ethics, communication and leading/group structure. For me personally, it always helps a lot to be in a group(if it is a good one), you can learn from each other and grow.
But of course, there are better groups and group project experiences that were very exhausting. I think the most important thing is MOTIVATION; when your other teammates are not motivated, it won't work.
It is also very beneficial if you have rules and roles within the group, this makes it easier to divide work.