Monsters You Meet During Group Projects
Who needs Halloween Horror Nights when you have groupmates like these?
We’re now at Week 12 - a time where compulsory readings and a social life have given way to more pressing issues like putting out the dumpster fire that is your group project/presentation due at the end of the week. One group mate is trying to change the entire direction of the project 24 hours before the presentation, another is struggling to convert random copy-and-paste pieces of text to actual sentences in the powerpoint, and the remaining member has decided that this project is f***ed, and that she would rather cut her losses and focus on securing that A for another module instead.
How did things get so bad in just a matter of weeks? It seems like it was just yesterday that the professor randomly assigned everyone in the class into groups. You looked at your group mates and thought, “Not too bad. I know that guy from that other module. And this girl speaks up quite often in class… Well, that guy looks kinda weird and socially incapacitated, but every group needs someone like that, right? Heh…”
As year 4 students, we are especially familiar with the process of a groupmate turning from “that guy in class” to “that CB burden dog responsible for my B-”. Here’s a list of the monsters you will meet during group projects. Halloween Horror Nights style.
1) The Control Freak
Usually a female. Wow, did we really just say that? Yup, we said it. That’s how confident we are that you share our sentiments. In fact, we haven’t even said much and you probably already have someone in mind. We’re talking about that feminazi and/or grammar nazi, ‘I’m-very-OCD-about-slides-so-just-don’t-touch-anything’ girl in your group. While displaying her expert Google Drive skills and Canva premium subscription, the Control Freak frequently laments about, or rather, declares how ‘anal’ she is about practically everything. As one observes her laugh at her own jokes (that no one else seems to get), you can’t help but shudder at the thought of any male suggesting actual anal to her.
Nonetheless, she’s the one that makes the slides look good, organises group meetings (albeit three weeks too early and two times more than necessary) and steers majority of the discussion. Basically, she gets shit done, and we put up with her off-putting-ness because of that.
2) The Phantom
Legend has it that the phantom was once a regular student, frequently seen in both lectures and tutorials… that is, until week 2, when he realised that the module could be S/U-ed. Since that sem-changing epiphany, one only hears legends of sightings of the phantom around campus. Suggesting for a short group meeting after class to split the work? He suggests that the group ‘meets’ on Google Docs instead. Calling for a meeting to consolidate the work? The phantom can’t make it as he’s busy with another assignment, but he will accept updates from the meeting and “add in his part by tonight”.
It seems as though the phantom, like that one girl you tried to hit on in tutorial, has been deliberately trying to avoid you all semester long. You even start wondering if they are the same person. Finally, on the day of the presentation, 5 minutes before your last group meeting to rehearse your parts, a bespectacled and lanky guy in a hoodie approaches your group saying, “So, everyone ready hor? I think should be quite fast one.”
Source “Oh, so you’re The Pha- I mean, you’re Nicholas. Hi.”
Phantoms can also be created under other circumstances like when the module is a UE, when the professor decides that there is no peer evaluation, or worse still, if the phantom himself is an exchange student wandering off to Bali on the weekends in his ‘elepants’.
3) The Wikipedia Mad Scientist
Wikipedia is undoubtedly one of the best things on the internet. Right after porn and The Bullet. In fact, a study in 2005 actually found that Wikipedia had a similar accuracy rate to that of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Don’t believe us? Just google “Wikipedia Reliability” and this comes up. On a page on Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia Mad Scientist takes Wikipedia as the gospel of truth, displaying his abominable work by religiously slapping prodigious chunks of Wikipedia text upon a canvas of Google Docs. On the night that everyone is supposed to have completed their respective parts in the document, one can observe the traces of “copy-paste, cut-paste, copy-paste, cut-paste” patterns that the grotesque hands of the Wikipedia Mad Scientist leave behind. You watch in terror as black and blue chunks of text, with superscripts and hyperlinks, get mutilated masterfully into increasingly incoherent and overly complex running sentences (not unlike the one you are reading right now).
Basically what his part looks like at the end of the night.
What usually ensues is the creation of a new Whatsapp group without the Wikipedia Mad Scientist. After much bitching and plotting to mark him down for the peer evaluation, a poor group mate (typically the Control Freak Girl) reluctantly volunteers to clean up his part so that Turnitin doesn’t turn you guys in for a 60% plagiarism rate.
4) The Mother FAQ-er
“This mother FAQ-er.” You can usually very easily spot a mother FAQ-er in class. Typically either a biz, philo or political science student, the mother FAQ-er expresses zero hesitation when it comes to asking those ‘damn CB’ questions in class. He will do anything to make the group presenting feel like they don’t know shit about their own presentation. He will taunt opponents with fancy rhetoric, lowkey throwing shade at them by loudly saying, “Err, okay…?”, after they try defending their position, and he will Google. Oh yes, he will Google.
Some common phrases that The Mother FAQ-er uses to launch his attacks include:
“Hmm okay, just help me understand. So you’re saying that...”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t…”
And while still looking at his f***ing Acer laptop screen (obviously this tool doesn’t use a Mac), “I just Googled and found this paper that says…” At least it’s not Wikipedia he is referring to.
Source Yeah we know.
What’s worse than having a Mother FAQ-er in the audience during your presentation? Having a Mother FAQ-er in your group, asking questions during other groups’ presentations, before you guys are up to present. You know what the old folks say, “A CB question for a CB question makes the whole world Mother FAQ-ers.”
5) The Headless Year 1
Perhaps the greatest irony in university is how seniors desperately cling onto the vestiges of that “freshman youth and spirit”, while at the same time hate freshmen with a passion. Them, and their fresh optimism and excitement of finally getting into uni, their 4 CCAs and their (now 8) free S/Us. I digress.
Source This picture has nothing to do with the topic. I just like GeGeMeiMei.
In a group project setting, Year 1s continue to disappoint us in myriad ways - with questions like, “What is APA citation?”, with their disgustingly unacademic, GP-level writing, and with their naivety in not yet understanding that everything is a social construct. Any sane university student would take a Year 4 Sem 2 student over a Year 1 any day.
With any luck, you’ll manage to steer this sinking ship of a group project through the finish line with (some) hair still intact. And with group mates like these, who needs Halloween Horror Nights for a good scare? (Yeah, we know we’re kinda late on the whole Halloween thing, f*** you, we were busy with a project.)
Any other characters we may have missed out on? Let us know by dropping us an email at thebulletcampus@gmail.com, and while you’re at it, check us out on instagram at @thebulletcampus!
