College

LegacyUser

I know this might seem very trivial compared to some of other peoples issues. Anyway Im currently doing a degree which the leaving cert points are very high. I didn't come through the leaving cert route to get my place on the course. The other people in my class would all all gotten 510+ points for this course. They all extremely intelligent. When we do groupwork in college I see a big difference between my ability and theirs.
A few weeks ago we were doing groupwork which was worth a % of our final year result. I really struggled with it. We only had a limited time to complete and the other people in my group were getting quite irritated with me. They were also struggling a little bit and were getting quite stressed. Then its like my brain totally freezes on me. But I just felt so stupid. Then I was getting stressed. I know if I had just 10 or 15 mins to read the material then maybe i would of been ok. But as I said time was limited and they people monitoring us were making us go faster. Afterwards I heard of the girls in my group giving out about me. Just wondering if anyone else feels stupid at times. I understand that other people have a right to get annoyed but does anybody have any tips on how to deal when these situations arise.

Well firstly, speaking from experience, no one likes group work. Group work is difficult and brings up a whole load of problems you wouldn't have on your own, but that's the very reason they make you do it. It's about working as a team and while your team may have gotten high leaving cert points (something that stops being important the minute you start your degree) they clearly didn't understand the "group" element of the exercise.

Secondly, stop thinking they're more intelligent than you. They're probably not as smart as they seem. There are a few people in my college class that got well into the 500s in the leaving cert, and seem so smart by the way that they talk and how much they seem to know, but their marks are often lower than mine because they don't realise that "smart"-ness isn't the only thing they're being marked on. A lot of them can't write well because they don't know how to communicate properly (they use big words for no reason and list off info without making it readable), and during group work they are often too demanding and complicate things needlessly. Don't let a few people seeming "smart" make you feel like you can't do well. You probably would have done better in the group work if you had have had a more confident attitude. It's no wonder your brain "froze", if you felt like you couldn't do it from the outset.

Ignore them, and concentrate on your contribution to the work.