I consider myself a loving person, but Group Work really tests my kindness.
The last few weeks have made me want to rip my hair out. My international affairs capstone class requires students to complete several long writing assignments in groups. At the beginning of the semester, I formed a group with two classmates because we were all interested in focusing on the same international conflict for the semester. I immediately regretted joining their group when they took several days to answer simple texts I sent about preparing for the first assignment. Still, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and continued to work with them. At the time, I had prioritized my passion for the topic over my desire for the perfect group.
However, in the following weeks, the situation only worsened. I was always the one who had to initiate discussions about meetings, deadlines, and ideas. I created and shared outlines for assignments, scheduled office hours, scheduled group meetings, wrote 70% of all papers, and formulated the main arguments. On top of that, my team took forever to respond and waited until the last minute to add the FEW paragraphs I assigned to them.
All in all, I did around 80% of the work, and any work my team did – was only after I sent several reminders. After the first assignment, I asked my team to have their work done several days before the due date so we had enough time to make edits and ensure the essay flowed well. I also asked them to communicate with me if they were struggling to complete their parts because I would be happy to help. My team seemed to understand; one member thanked me for all my efforts and offered to ‘front load’ for the following paper. It seemed as though the second assignment would go much better. I could not have been more wrong.
For the second assignment, I had to do even more work than the first. One team member did not even attend meetings and rarely answered texts. Then, after I had written 80% of the paper, she offered to make edits and add more information about the Authors and readings we were required to use. Despite her promise, I did not see any edits for days. So, of course, I went in and did everything myself. She also suggested an entirely different argument after the essay was edited and ready to submit.
I would have appreciated her input several weeks before, but it was too little, too late. She dared to tell me everything would be fine on the day of submission after I had fixed everything for the team. I smiled and said, “Yes, we slayed,” but my right eye and smile twitched. I had never wanted to scream at a classmate this much before.
Since our final class was a few hours before the submission time, I decided to stay after and ask my professor a few questions. I also wanted to know more about her grading policy, particularly regarding peer reviews. I waited for a while because there was a group asking her many last-minute questions about the assignment. When my turn finally came, the professor took one look at my face and suggested we take a seat on a bench in the hallway. I must’ve looked very exhausted or stressed. She led us away from the classroom, sat us down, and asked me, “What has been going on? How have you been?”
Immediately, tears began streaming from my face.
She then said, “Oh honey! It is okay, it is okay.” and began rubbing my shoulder.
I am not sure what happened. I hadn’t cried since last year. Her compassionate, knowing look and the fact that I had not been asked how I was by a real adult figure in years broke down all the strong walls I had put in place. It also did not help that she was a petite Japanese lady who reminded me of my mother. At that moment, my exhaustion just poured out of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. For close to 15 minutes, I just sobbed quietly. Every time I tried to take a breath or calm down, the tears started flowing again.
My stress about the assignment had piled onto my worries about my job search, my severe sleep deprivation, and my horrible eating habits. I had only been getting 4-5 hours of sleep and did not have time to eat throughout the day until I got home around 6 p.m. Moreover, the job search made me question my skills and accomplishments and whether I was worth anything as an employee. Sometimes, we can be in go-go-work-work-push-push mode, and our minds can forget how exhausted we are emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Once my crying calmed down, the professor asked me about what had been going on, and I told her I was frustrated because I felt that I had been taking on a significant share of work for the past few assignments. She offered to give us more class time to work on the project, which would help me significantly because the biggest issue was that my group was not responsive over text. We could also discuss arguments for future papers more effectively if we were together in person.
However, what was most helpful was having someone listen to my struggles. Keeping your worries to yourself can be unbelievably taxing. If you’re having a hard time, you are not alone. Open up to your friends or family. That is what relationships are for. As humans, we need each other. Moreover, sometimes, talking to a trustworthy adult outside of your family can help, too. I know we students are technically adults, but many of us feel like kids pretending to know what we are doing, tasked with an overwhelming amount of responsibilities.
Please prioritize your health and sleep; I will try my best, too! Also, do one thing to help you relax this week – whether it is as small as a 5-minute meditation session or a fun outing with friends! We got this.
All love,
Joy Yamagiwa
P.S – My Powers
If I could have one power to save the world, I would choose Atom Eve’s power from the Amazon Prime animated series, Invincible. I could transmute any material on a molecular level, changing items to anything I please. For example, I could turn any trash or waste into usable resources. I could also generate forests from leftover scraps of abandoned buildings. Furthermore, I could heal people by reconstructing the atoms that make up their bodies, creating food from waste, turning diseases into healthy nutrients, etc. The possibilities would be endless.
