same thing happened at my school, 3rd year residential project (90 units) with 4 to a group. some people like me did 90 percent of the work. a lot of those projects kicked ass - one person in the group was sacrificing sleep and healthy food of course. it is a good experience. and don't worry about getting lower grades because of ur team, architecture isn't about grades it's about ur portfolio. from what i've seen the quality of one's work and the hours he or she puts in is not proportional to the grade... the judgment of some teachers is way off, some play favorites, that's just the way it is.

"architecture isn't about grades it's about ur portfolio"

wow, managing a group of 13 is probably pretty rough / ambitious. Especially since (i'm assuming) you and your classmates have limited experience doing a project like that.

the only thing that I think would be crucial is trying to figure out what each aspect of the project an individual is interested in doing and make sure they are enthusiastic about learning and pushing the boundaries of that one aspect. otherwise, teaching someone illustrator, when they could care less about illustrator is a super challenging task which ends up being a waste of time.

also, early on in the process, don't fall on other people's grenades. let that shit explode in their face, make them accountable. at the end deadline everyone's got to rally the troops, but hopefully that scar tissue from earlier in the year will keep your coworkers' ass in their seat and an energy drink next to their mouse.

it may be late for all that, but no, your destiny is not predetermined. taking the lead on a group project can be a rewarding experience, and will allow you to step outside of the work you've probably been doing. you look forward, look backward, can recognize critical moments and transitions in the project.

...and at the end of the year, when you sit down with your professor, you may be able to tell the professor who should go through the misery of repeating studio... (like paying it forward, but backward)

Your professors know who is doing the work and who is slacking. While we don't climb down chimneys, the folks that are not pulling their weight will get lumps of coal.

Grades matter in applying for grad school. Grades also matter if you want a referral or job at the prof's firm. But not for much else after graduation.

Your portfolio and competence as a cad-monkey/marketing intern/other first, will determine the next few years of your career.

That said, group projects closely mimic real life working conditions. If you can successfully navigate a group of 13, you'll be fine in the office world.

Don't be afraid to talk to your prof about it, your concerns about the project with others not keeping up on their part of the work.

If they know they aren't doing the work and deserve a lower grade, might as well throw them under the bus and give them what they want, as long as your prof knows the work *you* did. If they honestly think they deserve a good grade for the work they did, let them argue their point with the professor for themselves.

Being the leader of a team means being proactive on stuff, even if it means sometimes feeding some of your team to the wolves to save the rest.

I would be sure to point out those members of your team that did contribute, just so its not seen like "I did everything".


Isn't the end of the semester a lovely time? Everyone's exhausted from long hours, stressed from the pressure of grades, and just a general air of grumpiness over the school...

neither grades or group projects...only personal connections and the particular school you go to.

Nepotism has always been the primary driver of success in architecture since its measurement is quantitatively undefinable.

Sorry to burst your bubble but grades and group projects don't mean squat, (unless that particular professor who gave you an A is a starchitect and wants to give you your first break or someone in one of your group project's father is loaded and wants to give you a big break or you end up marrying a rich girl in one of your groups and her family gets you started) your group projects and grades are practically worthless as long as you graduate.

Go to the school with the best reputation you can (even if the quality of the school sucks like Harvard or Columbia), survive by whatever means possible, graduate, then master the art of brownnosing, office politicking, and taking advantage of the nepotism that presents itself. That will determine your ultimate destiny and how far you go, or don't go.

However, I'm thinking grades will be important if you want to continue in academia for whatever reason, although the art of politicking is still of primary importance.

But don't expect anyone in the profession, esp. the AIA, to give you the time of day until at least your 50th birthday. Until that time, you are a mere tool to be employed in the capacity of CAD monkey.

Its all about the food chain...big fish and little fish and plankton.

Someone stated that your professors know who is doing the work and who is not.

I'd forget that bit of advice. They may have inklings but probably do not know who is putting in the massive effort. Instead, indicate to the professors that you feel some people on your team are not team players and are not doing an equal amount of the work. Do not specify who is or who is not but invite those professors to show up to studio more often or at certain times, especially those times when 50% of the group is never there.

JMHO. Don't let others slide on your work ethics and their lack of.

And your final grade will look the same to an employer come time for hiring. Graduated or not graduated. Know going for a masters, your grades may mean something.

Actually your destiny is determined before you are born by three blind women living in a cave.

will any potential employers actually look at your grades?
I dont think i put my grades or gpa on my resume, i just brought my portfolio

and no one asked

onthefence has some good advice too
its a fine line to walk between sounding like you are just whining, and making sure the professor is aware of the full situation

I know a few people in their mid-forties who have done quite a bit. One gentleman does large buildings, 250k sf, and has someone else make the cds.

Grades show your willingness to cooperate, participate and work hard. That's important.

Your job success does not depend on your grades. It mainly depends on the connections you have and demonstrating the ability to do the work the employer needs to get done (and yes the office politics). Now every employer's needs are different but if you want to work for a firm where people mostly work in groups then it is a good idea to show the employer how you led the group and even if you weren't as successful as the other groups what is important is how you led the group and how it changed the outcome. The overall success is not that important since the other members of the team didn't have enough talent or skills to get the work done and it is NOT your problem.

And as others mentioned professors always know who is doing the work or not.

mind you i bet i can guess the grades of most of the folks who send in portfolios to us.

otf - I do know, and my colleagues seem to know too. Maybe I'm overestimating the capacity of cooldude's teachers and thinking that they are as good as the folks I work with.

Why do we give out group assignments then? It's to teach the kids how to navigate the group dynamics, to see who are team players, and to simulate the professional world where every project is a team project.

Especially in a studio situation where you have frequent contact with each student, it's very clear who has the chops, who gives 100%, who slacks off, and who tries to get a free ride.

While I'm not challenging the importance of group projects at university, I would argue that there is one huge distinction between the group work that happens in school and the kind that happens in proffessional practice, and that's clearly understood heirarchy.

At every firm or office I've ever been to, there's some kind of chain of command that people are aware of. Even if you work in a studio type environment with a very 'flat-heirarchy', there's still someone with more experience, more knowledge, or simply more time at the office who's ultimately calling the shots.

That doesn't really exist at school. Everyone is by nature at the same level, and it's damn near impossible to tell a fellow undergraduate student to do something if they don't have any inclination/motivation to do it themselves. True, some people will naturally rise into a role of leadership, but with no real mandate to back it up, there's little a group leader at school can really do to 'enforce' their position.
If someone in the workplace isn't pulling their weight, there's proffessional consequences (less responsibility, no raise, no promotion, ... getting fired). At school, that's not so much the case. It's frustrating, but it's life. Just work hard, take pride in your work, and only worry about what's in your control.

karma

define people's task based on their skill level or lack thereof

you are expected to do no teach

group projects mimic the real way in which we practice

work smarter not harder

guidance

karma

define people's task based on their skill level or lack thereof

you are expected to do no teach

group projects mimic the real way in which we practice

work smarter not harder

guidance

that is a bit too yoda-like for me to parse ;-)


group projects can be frustrating. usually they are data collection/analytical kinds of projects where teams can gather more than individuals. which makes sense.


while group projects do mimic some aspects of real world, they DON'T really offer a full copy because in the end everyone knows they have to get the grade on their own and the buck ain't gonna stop with whoever is nominally in charge...so it works. the person in charge is a figurehead who gets to practice with what amounts to elaborate roll playing - which is a good thing. and everyone else gets to learn to negotiate distribution of work - also a good thing.

teachers generally do know who is slacking. if your profs are being fooled they are maybe not very good...

We all need experience in leadership, so singling out one student to be the group leader, while the rest of the group becomes "worker bees" is just silly. If leadership experience is so valuable, then why does only one person get a chance to do it? Unless there are 4 projects with 4 team members so everyone gets a chance in different roles.

The problem comes when you depend on other students for your grades, it often doesn't matter if the professor knows that so-and-so is a slacker. When your presentation comes due Mr. Slacker has done a crappy section drawing, say worth a C, while everyone else in your group has done drawings worth a B, however because they're right next to Mr. Slacker's C worthy drawing, the presentation just doesn't look that good, and this is about teamwork after all, so Mr. Slacker gets his C, while everyone else gets a B-.

Now what should you do, help Mr. Slacker with his drawing, taking time out from working on your own, thus lowering the quality of your work?

In my school,I got to involve in one group project which of course involved the whole semester. We were 3 people,one of us was a self-proclaimed design genius prima donna with horrible design ideas,one of us was a "talker",a diplomat with good people skills but no skills involving architecture whether it comes to production OR ideas and I was the quiet mainly production person with good structural knowledge but my design ideas didn't suck either. While I came up with the basic design idea,came up with the initial skeches and drew MOST of the plans my talker friend got an A+ while I got an A-.I don't know about the prima donna friend.
If it works the same in real practice then I'll work on my "talking" skills and maybe switch my career to sales or something but honestly I don't think I can be a good talker since I have a heavy accent...

Not everybody is born to be a leader. Some step up, some choose to avoid responsibility. Now you know why there are 50-something cad-monkeys in the world. If you look around at your classmates, how many do you think will end up owning there own firm? How many will succeed in keeping it running for more then a few years? Will you?

Leadership is a difficult thing to teach - maturity helps, along with the ability to balance competing agendas, and lots of other nuances. Business school and the military attempt to teach leadership and we've seen how little they succeeded.

I remember seeing something on tv about a study of group dynamics. People from inside the group were asked to solve a problem and then afterwards determine who they would describe as the group leader, generally picking the person who gave the most productive input. Then people from outside the group were asked to observe the same group and pick who they thought the leader was, without knowing what the problem was that the group was trying to solve. Generally this group of outside observers chose the person who provided the most input, regardless of whether that input was useful in finding a solution.

So to sum it up, from inside a group the person who did the most to solve a problem is considered the leader, and from outside the group the person who opened their mouth the most was viewed as the leader.

In general, society views people who are outgoing as leaders, often regardless of content.

In other words, fake it til you make it.

Or

Bullshitting Your Way to Success: A Guide to Management

I really dislike threads that boil down to calling management names.

It's a job with a lot of responsibilities and drawbacks. Namely the reason why managers are so chummy with other managers is that a good manager shouldn't be friends with his employees.

The bullshitting is useful, too. Without the bullshit, your job would probably be about 50x more depressing.

The reasons managers have to be extroverted is because they have to assault peoples feelings and judge them like cattle in a corral on a daily basis. So, if you don't get manager or thinks it's bloated and worthless... you're probably on the end of that "Everything about you sucks!" prod.

Mind you, I'm not saying this applies to all management, but it does open the door for those people that would rather tell people what to do than do it themselves. Its just simply more difficult to explain why you yourself couldn't make x widgets per hour than to explain why so-and-so working under you didn't make x widgets per hour. The kind of situation where you as a leader consider yourself part of the team, while the rest of the team just sees you as someone outside of the actual team sort of orbiting around it, until it comes time to take credit for the work.

But back to the school group project topic, there are just simply fewer repercussions to substandard school group work than in the professional world. Out there if you can't perform in a group you run the risk of alienating your coworkers, getting fired, etc, since you pretty much have to work in groups all the time, but in school if you piss off a couple classmates, who cares, odds are you won't have to deal with them next semester, and if you do poorly on one project or in one course, no worries, if you do fine on individual work and just don't play well with others it doesn't matter so much, since a majority of the curriculum is geared towards individual work.