This article is one of a two-part debate. The opposing argument can be found here.

Group projects are the saving grace of a student seeking the support and camaraderie of a shared workload. When I entered my first quarter of college, I was overwhelmed by the many classes that were given as options and took longest time to finally choose the ones I wished to take. After I picked my classes, which consisted of Creative Minds, English writing, and a humanities course, I was excited… then came the time for me to take them.  Truth be told, I was worried beyond belief that the workload would be difficult to manage between the three classes that I would be juggling throughout the quarter, but the tidal wave of work and stress never truly came surging through.

The large amount of work that I feared I would have to do by myself became a fleeting memory when I was introduced to the idea of working in a group. When one thinks of group work, I admit that the first thing that one may picture might be of a small group composed of however large the group would be with the idea revolving around only one person doing most- if not all of the work.

That idea became non-existent to me once the professor of my Creative Minds course had the class working in small groups on each class meet throughout the quarter. This idea gradually became non-existent to me though, as my Creative Minds professor had the class working in small groups each class meeting. At first, I was intimidated to open up to the other students of varying ages and walks of life. Once we all introduced ourselves to each other, however, that fear fell away.

I realized that we all sought to complete this course at the bare minimum, and we all possessed a unique set of perspectives and abilities that would come to define how we would work together to complete each task given to us.

As we progressed through each activity, with trust placed on each group member that every assignment would be completed, something new arose from the time we spent together. Friendship. We were all students with our own lives just trying to complete work together, and through group work collaboration we were able to do so while learning and keeping up with the course we were taking. At the end of the day, group lightens each individual’s load while creating a space for genuine, gainful social interaction.