By Constance Osuchowski
With just a few weeks remaining in the fall semester, tensions are running high across Ryerson campus. Students begin to openly show their suppressed hatred for their group project members.
It’s the time of year when it’s a good idea to avoid stepping on the toes of any student reportedly working on their final projects. Not only are they fueled exclusively by stress, caffeine and pure rage, but dealing with people is horrific and miserable. What makes it even worse is the fact that it all weighs on one project that’s supposed to let you graduate with some sense of accomplishment.
If a loved one responds to “How’s it going?” with “Oh, it’s going,” it’s probably because they’re the only ones who have added something to a shared Google Drive two nights before a project worth 50 per cent of a course is due.
The Eyeopener interviewed several Ryerson students hoping to gain a deeper understanding of exactly why working on a project with other people is so god damn awful.
When asked how they’re doing, Colin Leger, a fourth-year photography student working on their fall photography thesis responded by simply saying, “hammered.” They proceeded to repeatedly and passionately smack their fist into their palm and say, “fucking hammered.”
Third-year film studies student Eva Reed was spotted digging through a dumpster occasionally pausing to scream, “thesis,” as loudly and emphatically as possible.
Reed finally emerged holding a broken printer and a mannequin arm. She stated that instead of continuing to work with her current project partner, she was simply going to build a new one.
Like Reed, many students are coming to terms with the fact that they don’t know what they spent the last 10 weeks of the semester learning. The hope that a group member might actually open an email and read it is a pipe dream at best.
Fourth-year business management student Anisah Li was perched on top of one of the rocks in the middle of Lake Devo, clutching a pair of tactical binoculars.
She explained that she had forgotten the names of the people with whom she had agreed to work on the final project, and because they had not been to class since week one, she was unable to add everyone into a Facebook group chat.
Li told The Eye that she intends to stay on that rock because it is the “perfect vantage point” and she will not rest until she “finds those dirty bastards.”
Despite “teamwork” being a great skill to put on a resumé, second-year RTA student Danika Haas said that she would rather spend the rest of her life ghostwriting the autobiographies of teen TikTok stars than write one more group essay.
“If I have to explain one more time that Chicago Style doesn’t mean that all of your sources had to originate in the actual city of Chicago, I am going to explode,” cried Haas.
“My classmate tried to frame me for murder,” said fourth-year criminology student Sanjay Arnold. When asked to go into detail, Arnold took a lit cigarette and ate it whole.
“You miss one meeting, and suddenly it’s okay to just knock you out, cover you in pig’s blood and leave you in a Wendy’s parking lot at dusk,” sighed Arnold when he finished chewing.
Though visibly shaken, Arnold insists that the event was necessary and kickstarted his productivity. “Adrenaline is nature’s Adderall. Plus I got a first hand look at the inner workings of the world of forensic evidence.”
While students are constantly forced to work on GPA-defining projects with others, soon enough university will be over and group projects become a thing of the past.
Lol, sike. Welcome to the beginning of the rest of your life.
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