Editor’s Note: This article is a humor column.
Imagine that the sky is a crystal clear blue. The weather is a perfect mixture of warmth and breeze. Maybe it’s even Wing Wednesday at Newcomb Dining Hall. In short, it is a good day. You walk into class and see that your unassigned assigned seat is empty. Your proprietary hold over that one, perfect spot in the room’s center is intact. But then, tragedy strikes. You hear your professor say those cursed words — “group project.”
If you are in a major, like English writers in their tortured poetry concentration, where you work independently and have had minimal exposure to semester-long groups, you are among the envied few. However, if you are not — cough, cough STEM — then groups are a regular occurance. You likely cross your fingers and hope with mascara-ruining tears that your group members are responsible people who want to do the work efficiently or, at the very least, help each other out. Unfortunately, the probability of such a situation is equal to the odds of me — an English major — getting an A-plus in advanced physics. For those suffering through group work this semester, here are three tips for getting your classmates to put in a single grain of work. Follow them and your sanity will stay as intact as a bundle of loose pebbles held together by Elmer’s glue.
Tip One — Train your groupmates using Pavlovian conditioning
Ever heard of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian neurologist and psychologist whose experiments laid the foundation for research into the relationship between physiological stimuli and neutral stimuli? No? Well, did you watch that one episode of “The Office” where Jim pranks Dwight by tricking him to expect an altoid at the sound of his work computer rebooting? Yes? Okay, cool. That’s what biology majors call Pavlovian conditioning. So, if you want your groupmates to pull their weight more than one hour before a deadline, I recommend handing out sweets or quarter slices of Bodo’s Bagels directly when the projects or reports are turned in. Eventually, over time, they will beg to turn in assignments early after the repeated association between homework and cream cheese. By the end of the semester, your group members will salivate like Pavlov’s dogs at the thought of turning in the final project. This tip is best for groups that meet on more than a daily basis and have people who are easy to manipulate.
Tip Two — Hack your professor’s computer
Perhaps when you find out who your group members are, things are worse than you expected. You may be faced with a clown car of a group. Perhaps it includes someone you went on a date with. And that was the date that ended in climbing through the bathroom window midway through the meal — you or them being the escapee is irrelevant to the larger trauma. Or that one hallmate who thinks everyone’s business is their own because living on the same floor automatically makes you all “family.” And maybe even that one person you have worked with in the past who somehow can’t contribute to a single assignment because they have to attend the same grandparent’s funeral for the twelfth time in a row. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but trust me, you do not want to sit in a pool of agony and mascara with them every single class for an entire semester. The most logical solution is to steal your professor’s digital passcodes, hack into their Canvas page or whatever system teacher’s use to keep track of things — I suspect a super long Notes app page — and put yourself in a group made up of fake students with super realistic names. Next class, you can sit by yourself and simply tell the Teaching Assistant taking attendance that Joe McReal is in the bathroom, and Jane McLovin is at the dentist. Goodness knows you will be doing all the work even if the people were real so why bother pretending?
Tip Three — Straight-up blackmail
This is a simple one. Everyone has secrets, and your group members certainly do. Simply insert yourself into their lives, become a trusted confidant to their hopes, dreams and heart-reaching missteps. Think of these cute little factoids as weapons of extortion to force them into contributing equally. Maybe they are on the basketball team but dream of the theater, a perfect target. Obviously, do not go full Joe Goldberg, but remember the ends justify the means. Sure, this might shatter their ability to put faith in another human being or make their therapy bill longer than a CVS receipt? But hey, at least your group will turn in all your assignments on time and with a degree of academic elegance that would make even the most pretentious professors nod with approval. Just make sure they do not make their own fake group and leave you in the dust.
Well, I hope this list has been educational for you. Please employ these tricks with a level of responsibility that would make Uncle Ben proud, and do not let yourself become too attached to your groupmates. They won’t be around long after all. I can only hope my group members are not reading this right now, those brownie bites they handed out last class were delicious.
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