College Group Projects Be Like…

From pulling all-nighters, surviving on mess food, to faking attendance, college days have their own universal rituals that are non-negotiable. But perhaps none are as emotionally complex as the college group project.

Equal parts psychological thriller, existential crisis, and emotional outbursts, group projects promise collaboration and shared learning. What do they actually deliver? Chaos.

Act I: The Hopeful Beginning

The professor announces the group project. Some students groan. Some perk up. Some are still half-asleep.

You’re assigned a group. You look at the names.
One looks promising. One is the guy who asked if internal marks count. And one is… You have only heard his name and never seen him in class.

Still, there’s early enthusiasm and optimism. Someone says, “Let’s divide up the tasks now.” Another says, “We can meet tomorrow and plan it out.”

For one fleeting moment, you believe this might be smooth sailing.

Act II: The Vanishing Phase

A few polite exchanges happen. Someone starts a document.
And then nothing. Silence

Suddenly, everyone’s “a little busy.” Assignments pile up. Midterms arrive. Festivals happen. Life gets in the way. You check the document again. Still blank, except for the title.

You send a check-in message to the group that was only active only on the first day it was created.
No reply. For days.

This is the phase where you consider switching courses. Or identities.

Act III: The Passive-Panic Build-Up

With less than a week left, energy surges through the group, and everyone becomes active.
One person suggests “quickly set up a meeting.” Another says, “I’m free after 10 tonight.” Everyone starts typing at once, but very few are actually working.

Roles are vaguely distributed:

One person becomes the Leader not by choice, but because no one else is doing anything.

One person disappears again.

One contributes a half-done paragraph and calls it a day.

One starts asking deep, philosophical questions like, “Should we change our topic?”

You spend more time editing and stitching everyone’s parts than actually learning the topic.

Act IV: Submission and Survival

It’s the night before the deadline. You're all online. Some are panicking. Some are pretending to be calm.

Someone says, “We can submit a bit late, right?”
You ignore them and start formatting the slides.

Images are misaligned. Fonts are fighting each other. One team member still hasn't sent their part, so you write it for them. Out of spite. And survival.

At 2:57 a.m., it’s done. Submitted. A Frankenstein's monster of mismatched writing styles and last-minute edits. But it’s done.

You all say, “Good job, team!”
No one really means it.

Act V: The Aftermath

The professor gives you feedback. Maybe even a decent grade.
The project fades from your memory. So does the group.
You silently swear to never work with this group of people again.
Until the next group project appears. 

And somehow, you go through it all over again.

What You Actually Learned

Group projects aren’t about the topic or the work. Let’s be real.

They are there just to teach you patience, delegation, crisis management, and how to stop yourself from screaming when someone says, “Let me know if anything’s pending!”

And they are exhausting. Frustrating. Occasionally hilarious.

But someday, when you're leading a team at work or collaborating with people you don’t know, you’ll realize, this was weirdly good training.

So if you’re in the middle of one now, hang in there.
You’ll make it and laugh about it one day.

(But definitely not today.)