I loathe group projects. I’ve never liked them. I cried in the 6th grade when my English teacher made us self-select into groups, and my friends excluded me from their pairings, so I had to work with a BOY. (Oh, the drama.)

If I ever do become a professor one of these days, I will not assign group projects outside of the classroom unless absolutely necessary. I do think collaboration is a useful teaching tool, but when it comes to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), I think individual work is better.

All that is to say, my graduate professors are keen on group work. It would be different, perhaps, if we were all on-site and had the opportunity to meet at the library, etc., but we are scattered all around the country in different time zones, with different work schedules and home lives. It’s quite frustrating to try to coordinate who does what, when, how, etc. I am thankful that I’m not the team leader this go-round, but still — everyone’s input is necessary, and when I’m away from my laptop for a few hours, then I’m behind on the discussion and feel like I haven’t pulled my weight.

We did manage to finish a group policy paper on food scarcity in the U.S. this week, complete with proposed solutions and a timetable. The ironic piece of this problematic puzzle is that there is actually enough food produced in the world to feed everyone! There are so many interlocking factors that muddy the waters on how to actually get food to people who need it. Delving into this issue makes me appreciate my first-world problems like the grocery mega-store not having enough sugar-free bottled drinks for my kids’ school lunches. Don’t they know I need to buy at least 6 packages at a time?! 😉