Blog Eight: Rules

3 Minutes Read

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Before writing this blog, I need to go back a bit and explain some things, so you won’t be too confused about why and what I’m writing about. For my University 101 class, we have a semester-long project called the Guidebook Project. This guidebook project is to have a group of students write informative things about a particular place. The place that my group and I wanted to research and find out more about was the Study Abroad Office. After researching the study abroad office for the majority of the semester, my guidebook group and I will present our research and findings in a symposium to spectators. That is why for the past blogs (four – seven) I’ve only written about the study abroad office or things that are related to it. For commitment and accountability purposes my group and I have developed a set of rules to help us stay on track until our symposium on December fifth.

I’ll begin with the rules that we’ve come up with. Our rules are; communication (as a whole we decided that our lack of communication has really affected our ability to work cohesively, we must let each other know when things are due in case of forgetfulness, and reminders when we are meeting up), participation (my group and I decided it’s important that everyone carries their weight as much as possible, participate is a must, our group can’t rely too much for one or two people to do most of the work, everyone’s contribution is important), show up to our group meetings (we have decided to meet up every two weeks until our symposium on December fifth, showing up is a must, an obligation, not an option, unless an emergency emerges, my group and I must be at our meetings), hold each other accountable for their actions and lack of action (a consequence for not being able to show up to the meetings is the member(s) owes the group lunch or Dutch bros, I came up with this rule to give some type of motivation to not flake out on meetings), everyone must have the latest blog post done by the next meeting (in order to produce good work for the guidebook, the whole groups’ travel blogs have to be polished and done to have good content), and the last rule is knock off ten – twenty points off of one group member’s grade if they don’t show up to the meetings.

Essentially it’s a double penalty for someone who can’t make it to the meeting. We understand that extreme shit happens but communicate that with us before that they won’t be able to be there at the meeting. Nate came up with the last rule, it was added a day or two after because in case if someone can afford to pay for lunch, they might be more inclined to not show up to the meeting, this way they know that their grade won’t be too salvageable if they don’t show up. On the timeline, Mattie has mapped out the days we will work on our guidebook and when things are due. Everyone has a photo of the timeline and rules on their phone. We had our first group meeting on the second of this month, and our next two meetings are on the sixteenth and thirtieth of this month. Mattie has also listed when blog posts are due. Overall, we want each other to succeed and pass this class, and I know that I’ve been in a slump lately. I’m slowly getting out of it and getting my shit together so that I don’t let down my group. More importantly, so I don’t let down myself, so I won’t have regrets later on.