Reflective Essay On Group Work

Domingas Fernandes
Just like many human beings, as far as I can remember I have been always part of a group. During childhood, most of the games I used to play where collective; we formed groups and competed against each other. But different from grownups groups, these groups where fun, exciting, and uninhibited, maybe it is because there wasn’t much on stake – if we lose one day, we can just play another day and there was no reason to stress out. Right when I got into high school that amazing feeling of working or belonging to a group changed completely. In my country, in order to graduate from high school all students had to pass the “Professional Aptitude Examination.” This project was important to finish high school with an excellent grade

I was new to the way Americans communicate and was still getting used to the college environment, but then it happened; during my second semester in college, I had to join a group for a project that was about 20 percent of the grade in the class. I did not want to be bossy, but I also did not want to have to do all the work. The group first started slow, but I kept on sending messages about the assignment and group meetings. Everybody eventually started to work together and we got along well. We finished the project ahead of time and we had a lot of spare time to revise the project. This group experience was very positive, we even studying together for other classes. Finally, when we were preparing for our presentation, one of my classmate said something that stuck with me until today, she said: “I think you should present first Manuela, because I think ofall of us you are the one who has that natural leadership initiative.” I have never though of me like that, but looking back I realized that I usually was elected or just perceived to be the leader. Unfortunately, not all experiences would be similar to this one; just a semester later I would be a leader of the most complicated group I have ever been part

Firstly, communication was very difficult; most of the group members were international students whose English was not perfect. Sometimes I would have to send a lot of message and they would answer, most of them did not even check their emails; I would schedule meetings and nobody would show up; and the worst of all, they did not even read the assignment sheet, so most of the time we met they did not know what we had to do. I felt like I had to be a professor rather than a student. During our meeting, instead of starting working right away, I had to spend a lot of time explaining things that they should already know. Perhaps the worst of all was that 50 percent of my grade depended on them. I suppose they did not even know the grade rubrics since they would not read the assignment sheet. For the individual part of the project the professor would give me 100 percent, but my group members grade would lower my overall grade.
Overall, I value both the positives and negative experiences; the good ones I would like to experience again, but the bad ones I just want to use as a learning experience. These experiences will eventually make me a better group member or perhaps a better leader. But one thing for sure, I learned from those experiences: communication and a child’s spirit are essential