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College Problems Podcast #7: Group projects & dating violence

Dan Reimold

Sexual violence and messy roommates. Unpaid internships and underbutt shortsRacial microaggressions and the Freshman 15.

College life is filled with an unending stream of serious issues, lighthearted frustrations, significant events and viral trends. The College Problems Podcast wades into this stream with a regular series of spirited chats attempting to make sense of it all, while also offering story ideas to student journalists and advice for undergrads on staying safe and sane.

The podcast is hosted by a pair of younger educators and digital media geeks who view the collegiate sphere through the lenses of journalism and personal safety.

Dan Reimold is an author, reporter, journalism professor and student media adviser who writes regularly about student life, higher education and college media, including the Campus Beat column for USA TODAY College.

Christina Gaudio is a veteran first responder, a former rape care community outreach coordinator and an adjunct professor of victimology.

In our previous episode, we addressed a pair of problems: the prevalence of students wearing pajamas to class and the complexities surrounding the issue of firearms on campus.

Expanding upon that discussion, we tackle two new problems in our current podcast segment.

1) The eternally-frustrating academic endeavor known as the group project

As a Des Moines Area Community College student writes in The Campus Chronicle, "Group project. One of the most hated phrases a student could hear. ... Rarely do group projects accurately depict the amount of work each student put into the [overall effort]. Most of the time you get stuck with the kid that does nothing in class and the teacher hopes you can help improve their grade. ... I think it is ridiculous that group projects are still being used. It was fine in elementary school when every kid was eager to learn, but this is college. As you get older the eagerness to learn leaves most students and what is left is pure laziness. Group projects should be limited to younger students and never be used in college."

2) Domestic violence -- which Colorado State University's student newspaper calls a "silent crime on college campuses"


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What college problems should be addressed in future podcast segments?

Dan Reimold, Ph.D., is a college journalism scholar who has written and presented about the student press throughout the U.S. and in Southeast Asia. He is an assistant professor of journalism at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where he also advises The Hawk student newspaper. He is the author of Journalism of Ideas (Routledge, 2013) and maintains the student journalism industry blog College Media MattersA complete list of Campus Beat articles is here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.

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