Thursday 11 May 2017

collaboration - Team work at Masters level


Ok so first off a bit of background. I've been working professionally three years in a software engineer position after my BSc. in Mathematics and Physics. At some point I realized I missed doing true research so I enrolled in Masters in Financial Mathematics, which seemed to me the ideal trade off between maths, programming and well finance which is quite interesting.


So now, here I am, first year, with full time lectures. My first reaction was to be disappointed by the amount of team work, since in my BSc days all homeworks were individually graded. For some mathematics courses it's fine, since there's a single good answer. However, there are some instances where it's definitely more research-like, almost like a lab report actually.


What however is unnerving is that I'm stuck with teammates with whom I don't exactly share the same work ethic. For instance, I had to insist on writing formal proofs. Anyway, I just feel that if it wasn't for me we'd keep to the bare minimum. AFAIK this is quite different from the industry where, if a team screws up, then either someone is going to get fired or at least the team is going to be split by the management. Here, the prof just won't care and will assign a global grade and go on to the next team.



So I'm not sure what's the right path. On one side, I really want to make sure our team performs well, this is quite a big move I made here, but on the other side, I just don't want be bossy with them, yet here I am writing emails where I detail clearly what I'm awaiting from each of us. Also, well, I haven't talked openly with them about this issue, I'm not certain how I can bring it.




No comments:

Post a Comment

evolution - Are there any multicellular forms of life which exist without consuming other forms of life in some manner?

The title is the question. If additional specificity is needed I will add clarification here. Are there any multicellular forms of life whic...