By: Danielle Edwards & Taylor Clysdale
Group projects are, for the most part, an intensely-detested part of one’s schooling. Most of us cringe at the mere mention of “partnering up” and scoff at the usual party line of “building our collaboration skills.”
You’ll need to work with groups of people in the future, our teachers say.
Probably, but this wasn’t the way to go about it because now I hate everyone, we reply.
Everyone has their horror stories. Group projects are essentially a mixture of late submissions, members going missing in the 11th hour, and passive-aggression, so there is understandably a level of apprehension that accompanies even the most well-organized tasks. It means that the only thing keeping people from resorting to violence is the very real possibility of having to serve time.
Fortunately for this year’s print edition of Emerge, the stars aligned.
Emerge is undoubtedly the ultimate group project. It has to be, considering the scope of producing magazines for print, web and Instagram and putting together an awards ceremony and a conference all within a single semester. The process, however, was made much easier by the great group of people who worked on it. We have all put in countless hours and it shows. The fact that this year is built around a cohesive theme is testament to how much we all care, not just about the marks, but about producing something that can stand on its own as a complete and meaningful body of work.
Apart from obvious lessons like the importance of organization (shoutout to Trello) and how to divide work evenly, the biggest takeaway for us was the value of good communication. Being able to not only communicate, but also to listen and absorb information, is a key factor in any successful enterprise. We found that it was crucial to the process of writing, designing and editing the magazine, and we can say with confidence that we are now better equipped to use those skills in “the real world” (which is another argument that most of us have to deal with).
Creating the magazine was definitely a labour of love, so if there is one thing in particular we took from this whole ordeal, it was the fact that something of this magnitude rests entirely upon the shoulders of a competent and passionate group of people. And we know that this year, everyone involved rose to the challenge.
Danielle Edwards and Taylor Clysdale, Editors-in-Chief, 2017 Print Magazine
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