8. Partners

Sometimes working with a partner can be beneficial, while sometimes it is not helpful. For some people, they work better with someone to depend on to take part of the load and for others they prefer to work alone so they know that they deserve the grade they get and it's not on account of anyone else's error.


I'm the kind of person who is indifferent when it comes to partner work. I do not care if I work alone, and I do not care if I have a partner. It usually does not matter to me. There have been times where partner work has helped me, has hurt me, and has just been...work with a partner.


Just about a week ago, Hallie and I worked as partners for a history project. We both knew that with each other as partners we were sure to do a good job on the project since both of us make it a point to do well in school. We also knew that with each other as our partner, neither of us would have to carry significantly more work than the other. It ended up running smoothly as we each had our own tasks, and the final product, our board game Pirates or Privateers, ended up being really cool.

There was one time my freshmen year that my partner did not prove to be as cohesive as Hallie was. I do not remember the specifics of the project in my engineering class (intro to engineering) but I do remember that my partner, who was from New Berlin, ended up doing next to nothing on our project and I was mad that even though we got an A, I had to do all the work for that A and my partner got to slack off the whole time.

Sometimes, partners don't hurt or help necessarily, they just aid in comprehension. I know that in my precalculus class, we work with a partner almost every day to do some practice problems. I find this very helpful, because if I don't understand a certain concept, my parnter can usually help me understand it, and vice versa.