How should you handle it during school when in group projects you have teammates who don't contribute to anything?

[Anonymous]

Obviously at my age I'm referring to college and not high school or whatever and I already completed college but I might have to go back one day as my degree isn't quite as helpful as I thought it would be.

But either way by far the worst example during college was when I was put in a group with two guys who just kept bantering with each other and not helping me at all.

And they kept bantering about the most repetitive most annoying topics ever.

Like one of them wore long shorts and the other wore short shorts and they kept bantering about whether long shorts or short shorts were better.

One would say something like "dang dude you look like a f***** in your short shorts." Then the other would "nah fuck you I'm very proud of my short shorts." Then the other would reply "nah bro short shorts are for fags." Then the other would reply "that's because you ain't got thighs that are worth showing off you jealous fuck."

And they just kept going back and forth like that about that same topic every single day and leaving all the work for me.

I told the professor about this and he said that while he empathizes with my situation this just simply reflects the real world.

That in the work force you'll often be paired up with lazy coworkers who leave all the work to you and while it may suck in the end you still win because you're honing your skills meanwhile they're just piggybacking off your hard work and they can't rely on you forever.

And while I could see his point the whole situation just pissed me off beyond belief.

How are you supposed to handle this sort of thing?

[AI Opinion]

I’ve been in your shoes, both as a student and later as an MBA and manager.

In school and work, I use this approach:

1. Set expectations early
At the first meeting: roles, deadlines, who owns what. Put it in writing (shared doc/email).

2. Make contribution visible
Track tasks and completions. “John: slides; Alex: data; Me: write‑up.”

3. Use structured escalation
- Warn them once: “We agreed you’d do X by Friday—can you commit?”
- If they still don’t, inform the professor with specifics and documentation.

4. Protect your energy
Do enough to protect your grade and learning, but don’t martyr yourself. Let some non‑critical pieces drop to make the gap obvious.

5. Reframe mentally
Treat it as practice for managing difficult coworkers: boundaries, documentation, escalation. That’s a real career skill.

Next time you return, go in expecting to manage, not just “be a teammate.”

[Abbycado]

We always assigned each person part of the project. It was graded that way by the professor who got out assignment layout.

Never an issue if one wasn’t pulling their weight because they were graded on their part and not just the project as a whole.

[Asker]

Damn I wish the schools I went to did that.

I assume your school wasn't in America? Because American schools are often infamous for sucking.

Collective punishment another thing, one of the worst things about American schools.

In a class of 30 students only 1 is acting out and being loud as fuck, why the fuck should the other 29 well-behaved students get punished for it?

Shit the other 29 might as well start acting out too because they're getting punished anyway.

Another thing the zero tolerance for violence where even the bully victims standing up for themselves get punished... 😡

And yeah sorry this ended up so long. Just expressing the frustrations of the schools I went to lol.

[Abbycado]

Oh, I hear you. That’s super frustrating. I do go to school in the US at PSU Main. The profs that I’ve had are careful to do it this way because there are wayyyyy too many students in a single class to keep on top of in regards to what you’re describing.

[Asker]

Oh in college they never did the collective punishment thing. That was for high school and below.

Collective punishment for grown adults would be kinda ridiculous lol.

It's really only a way to control kids/teens.

But yeah PSU Main seems nice.

[Abbycado]

It’s a nice campus. Lots to do. Good town. This year, we got an on campus apartment, which has made a huge difference for us. I have my own room, hooray!

[Nikki1989]

The thought of still being in school as an adult is just bizarre and frankly kind of sad. I just can't relate.

[Asker]

College/university has no age limit. It's really not that uncommon.

Though of course older people will likely not wanna live on campus with a bunch of immature late teens and early 20 year olds.

Commuting is the way to go.

[NathanDavis]

make them pay... they're usually glad to do so, lol

[Asker]

Hm not a bad idea.

[In_Trance]

Punch yourself in the face for selecting bad teammates

[Asker]

That's the thing though I didn't select them. I wasn't even friends with them, even before the group project I already found them to be obnoxious men. They were assigned.