The First Semester

So, it was today that I handed in my final assignment for semester one. Taking into consideration that this semester was my first ever semester of uni, I think went pretty damn well. The ride was certainly not as smooth as I had expected, and I hit a few fairly large brick walls along the way; all of which I managed to climb and continue on, ready to hit another. Some of my biggest challenges took on the form of group assignments. In total I had two group assignments, one of which was incredibly intense and provided me with a range of issues which I had to quickly overcome to complete the assignment. In retrospect, this particular assignment provided me with the most stressful, and the most surprising time of the entire semester.


The group consisted of three people including myself, and we were required to prepare a presentation on a film that was screened in-class the previous week. It seemed simple enough. From the outset I observed that the group was missing a leader. I’ve been in group situations before, but never operated as a leader. I could see that no one else was going to step up, so I did, and it was fine, until I actually had to start organising the group.

The two other group members were adamant about compiling our notes on the morning we had to deliver the presentation. I thought this was a bad idea. I sent numerous emails suggesting that we should start the process sooner, rather then wait until the Monday deadline. Upon realising that the other group members weren’t going to be persuaded I started trying to do the entire assignment by myself, and soon found this to be an impossible task.

The presentation needed to have a central argument which each member of the group could relate their research to. I couldn’t just create the other’s work and say ‘Here, read this.’ I started freaking out, and it felt like the world was ending, and I began to question my intentions for signing up for uni in the first place. Over the weekend I continued to develop my notes for the presentation, while continuing to prompt the others about the compilation of our notes before Monday. It was Sunday evening when I threw in the towel. I gave up trying to coerce the others, and decided to adopt the same relaxed approach which they had seemingly mastered.

I went from group leader to slack group member. I stopped trying to control and persuade, and I joined them, not physically but mentally. I found that I started to relax and let the natural flow of inevitability step in. I awoke Monday morning extremely nervous. I don’t like public speaking even when I am prepared. I gathered my notes, and drove to uni. The study area of the university’s library is where we had planned to meet. I located one of the group members, and she was holding a handful of chocolates which were for the class members who answered our short quiz questions correctly. I was impressed. I told her that was a great idea and would surely encourage a greater interest in our presentation. But that’s the thing, there currently was no presentation. We sat down and waited for the other group member. He arrived about five minutes later and seemed pretty keen on getting started. He said he’d been up all night finishing another assignment, and it was at 4am that he was able to watch the film for the first time. He had no notes prepared. I found his lack of involvement to be more interesting rather than infuriating.

We started work on the Power Point presentation which we would present in just a few hours time. Surprisingly, we all seemed to work efficiently and ended up with a pretty reasonable collection of slides. We rehearsed a couple of times and then headed off to class. We setup and delivered the presentation. Everything seemed to go well, and the quiz seemed to attract a healthy class discussion. We waited a week to receive our marks, which consisted of individual peer assessment sheets and the tutor’s overall grade. Somehow, we managed to get a distinction. We were all surprised, and as we looked through each of the peer assessment sheets we noticed that the great majority had stated that our presentation was the best presentation of the entire class... What a strange turn of events.

I left uni that day with high spirits.

I learned many things during the course of that assignment, but I think the most important was that we can’t control other people, even if we think that’s what’s required of us. When I let go and joined the group as a member, I felt so much better than I did when I was trying to be a leader.

As you can tell I’m not experienced in the field of team leadership, but I would most certainly like to get better at it.