I run into class eager to start. United States history is usually boring and dull but today would be different. The cause of my enthusiastic and exciting outlook on class today would be because today we’d be starting our group projects. Being the young and dumb seventh grader I was, I didn’t realize that the group projects I’d love to partake in would eventually cause me a lot of pain and frustration.

The bell rings and the class takes their seats. Our teacher puts us into groups and gives us our assignment. The task was simple, each group member picks one event that greatly impacted America, do research on that event, and put in a google slides document. With all six of us working together I believed we could finish in just the one class period. I got to work and started researching. After a while, I had completed and put my findings on our google slides. Another member of the group had finished around the same time as I had. Everything was going good except for one small problem, the other four people in our group hadn’t even started yet.

While I and the other person were doing our share of the assignment those four people had sat on the ground and played video games on their computers. I started panicking not knowing if we were going to finish in time. I started yelling at those four people, asking why they hadn’t done their share of the work. They simply stated, “We didn’t want to do it.” I sighed and walked away I didn’t have the time to argue with those idiots. I sat at my desk and organized my thoughts. The other person and I would have to finish up the rest of the work.

We select the four events that we’d need to research about and begin. The more and more I spent doing their work for them the angrier I got. It was one simple assignment and they failed to do that one simple thing. After a long grind, we finally finished just in time. The assignment looked a bit rushed and a little messy but for the time frame we had, it was good. We got our grades, and we all got an A. Yes all of us, even the four people who didn’t contribute anything. The four lazy slackers acting like parasites benefiting off of a classmate’s and my work. I was outraged.

After that project, I never shared the same love for group assignments ever again. Despite being an awful experience, it did teach me a few things that made me into the more independent person I am today. First off, I learned to stop relying on other people. Most of the time they seem to let me down as those four people did in seventh grade. Second, If you want something done right, do it yourself. I’m sure we've all heard that phrase at some point in our lives and didn’t think much of it. But it's actually a very true statement. Looking back at that group project, even if those four people had done their work it probably wouldn’t have been good forcing me to have to fix it. So, instead of wasting the time fixing something that isn’t good, do it yourself and get a good result the first time.