Lab members keep messing up. What to do?

[silkwolf]

Im in achem and while the previous experiments have been individual labs, we are now doing group labs. The 2 other members are nice, but they keep on screwing up and causing us to start over or not finish in time. The first lab, one guy added in a wrong reagent (which he admits) in the middle of it and we had to restart the lab. Then at the end of the lab, our final solutions did not have the correct appearance meaning someone had used a wrong reagent. There wasnt enough time at this point meaning that we had to come in redo the entire lab another day, the only group to need to.

The next lab, we had to divy up the tasks again. I was worried that they would mess up again, and so i tried monitoring what they were doing although I couldnt do that the entire time of course. To check, I asked if this one guy had added such and such reagents before doing such and such procedure- he responded by saying he didnt know we had to. *facepalm. So, had to start over again. After another mistake, we ended up finishing half an hour after the lab period was over , and when I got home and calculated the results for the portion they were responsible for, their results didnt even make sense.

At first I was like ok I can suck it up and just do everything myself, but the group labs are designed so that the tasks must to be divided up in order to finish on time. Thus, I feel so incredibly frustrated because I cant be watching over them all the time and even if I do my tasks correctly, they will screw something up leading to incorrect results for the final product (this is achem so result quality and accuracy is crucial). Any advice on how to deal with this is much appreciated because I am very close to losing it.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[NotWayneBrady]

Ummmm...

What kind of advice are you honestly expecting to get here? This is how group projects work bud, do the work yourself, get new partners, or suck it up and deal with it.

If it's any consolation it's just one lab, and won't matter tremendously in the long run.

 

[eteshoe]

I feel your pain. One possible thing you can try is to have everyone write up a protocol outlining what each member is responsible for and meet before lab (day before, or same day) for like 20 min to make sure everything makes sense. Back when I was an Achem and Gen chem TA, I required my students to do this (+ a prelab quiz) in order to cut down on wasted time. But if that proves too difficult, suck it up and get through the lab. You most likely won't adversely affect your chances of getting into med school over one lab.

 

[NotWayneBrady]

I feel your pain. One possible thing you can try is to have everyone write up a protocol outlining what each member is responsible for and meet before lab (day before, or same day) for like 20 min to make sure everything makes sense. Back when I was an Achem and Gen chem TA, I required my students to do this (+ a prelab quiz) in order to cut down on wasted time. But if that proves too difficult, suck it up and get through the lab. You most likely won't adversely affect your chances of getting into med school over one lab.

Or, on a similar vein have everyone meet up 15-20 minutes before the lab and have a quick huddle to hash out a game plan with your partners if they are receptive to that as an option. Communication can help quite a bit here.

 

[Sause Baus]

One common interview question is how do you handle group conflicts. Use this as a chance to practice your leadership skills!

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[silkwolf]

It worked out in the end!

 

[Skydive Fox]

Late to this, but it reminds me of a funny story. I had a similar group of I got stuck with in chem lab once. I ended up setting up a GroupMe for us all and sent them a step-by-step the weekend before and made sure everyone understood exactly what to do. I ended up tutoring them for the lecture as well, haha. They returned the favor by helping my scrawny ass start lifting weights

 

[Turkishking]

Talk to them