This week has been just too fast. And its Thursday tomorrow. We've started our interview preparation process and we try to meet everyday. Let me stress on that try word because we dont necessarily meet everyday. It somehow becomes twice a week with the multitude of assignments people have on different days and different times. And thats probably the best part of whatever happens in the elective terms. The courses are desgined in such a way that you definitely end up crunched for time at any given day.
Previously, it was just one group. You had to meet atleast once a week to sort out the assignments, do the allocations and then collate the results. In between, allocations were also made as to who would network with others to get the best answer possible. Doing that was by itself a challenging task. On top of that was group dynamics. Every group by rule has some strange characters.
Some are free riders. It seems, during the last year, most groups had one girl and the rest were guys. And this, according to feedback provided, gave an opportunity for the girls to be free riders. So this time, any group that has members of the fairer sex was gifted with two. Now if that was a devil in disguise - you never know. But then, free riders are everywhere. Sometimes the guys are like that too. This cannot be avoided.
The next ones are the people who just care about their grades and nothing else. I came across one like that sometime back. I was just astonished. Their reactions are -"I am not bothered about my group. What if a lesser competent member in my group did something and I got an A minus from getting an A?" They give such kind of arguments. Bottomline: they dont trust their group at all. all they are bothered about is what they get.
Now, even in the free riders, there are some smart free riders, who pair up with the working lot in the group. just to show that they are doing some work too. i definitely feel you need talent for that. its not easy to spot the person who knows all the answers and make him/her do all the work while you are busy taking care of other errands like attending a party!!!
then, there are people who start their work by first looking at what the other group has done. then they start pestering the other members of the group to think in the same direction. they just keep making phone calls to their friends in different groups and try to get all perspectives, keep confusing and irritating the rest of the group.
and the list goes on....
the only thing that I could probably get from this is the kind of people you should watch out for, there are certain signs and indications. dont worry, your inner voice will not tell you. but if you've been through this cycle of interacting with groups, then you'd probably get a fair idea of with whom you'd want to work with, though that intuition wouldnt be right always.
From this term, there are groups for every course. managing so many group meetings in one day is the challenge. attending classes is not a problem at all. then there is an interview prep group, there is a group that works for the conclave, summit, and then groups for frisbee, football, marathon - okay we dont have group meetings for these, whenever we meet, we play. everywhere on campus, there is a small group discussing something or the other. and this would go on till march next year.
so, after battling with so many groups during the last one month, we have finally come to a halt. my final presentation for one of the courses i have taken this term is due on friday. we have a group meeting tomorrow afternoon to prepare for the same. that marks the culmination of group meetings for this term. oh no, it doesnt. there is another meeting sometime during the next week.
would that be the final one? you never know. the rate at which everything is happening around you here is just mindblowing. suddenly there would be an email to you. you would have been inducted into a group automatically. they'd never ask your permission. you'll be instructed to land up for the meeting and if you didnt, you'd probably end up with the ones that are remaining in each class. and beware, if a situation like that happens, then you can confidently write off your grade for that course.
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