#pair dynamics

I mean I definitely had one partner who didn't really know what was going on most of the time and so I was really trying to make sure that I wasn't taking up too much space when we were working together because I was like I don't want to be the mansplaining CS asshole because I don't want to do that, but at the same time she just kept not knowing what was happening and just kind of like staring at me until I would say like, “Maybe we could try doing this,” and so it was hard to find the balance between not just sitting there for two hours but also trying to be a helpful and decent human being.

There’s also just those partners who...probably should have tested out of [intro] or who would just like take the reins -- and are usually white men. [I had to work with someone like that] one time in intro, and then I like...switched partners as soon as I could. It was so frustrating, because you would say something, and then they would either just...not listen to you, or do something else and then say the same thing you said! And be like, “this is how you do it.” Or you’re arguing about what is essentially the same thing, but a minor minor difference. Also, there’s a difference between like...helping the person who’s driving, and trying to drive from the seat next to them. Like, okay! I know what I’m doing, I can label my variables right.

And then someone will ask question in class, and I’ll realize I have no idea what the question even means. Or that I've been thinking about it entirely wrong, so like I was doing everything wrong. But yeah, I don’t think I like...seriously considered it. Besides when I was considering other majors, back when I first started CS. But, I’ve definitely considered what I’m going to do with CS differently after this class.

I know there's a lot of people that don't feel comfortable being honest about how the experience went. Because if you have, for example, a man and a woman working together and the man rips the keyboard away from the female identifying person and then the split ends up being like 70/30 because you can't even get the keyboard, then there's sometimes like a fear like, oh if I actually say how much time they spent driving it's gonna look like I didn't do any of the work. And there's also this idea of like you don't necessarily want that person to be approached with it, because then you’re sort of identifying yourself as like oh yeah that was crappy, when you also might have to work in the same major as that person for the next three years, and you might not want that person to know that you didn't appreciate that experience because you don't know if they're going to handle that well or if they're going to be a jerk about it. So I think ummm maybe like a bit of a more broad than a course-by-course accountability tool would be good or just being more open with your students and like if you're having these types of problems feel free to come talk to me about it, and we can proceed the way you want to proceed.

We we're just going to be a pair for this one project, but then this third person came in was like, oh I don't want to work with my other partner anymore can I join your group? And we said yes, and that person was coming from like a totally different background than us, where he was the type that just knew a lot of things and like CS has been his hobby since like he was eleven, and he already knew what github was and had all these tools under his belt. And I think it's on a person-by-person basis, but I didn't feel discouraged around this person. He taught me how to use the debug tool on IntelliJ, which was like so awesome and it made like the project experience for me so much better. Yeah it didn't feel like I couldn't contribute things because I didn't know enough, like I don't know, the other person just made it a good experience, by not being pretentious I guess.

It was just better or worse depending on who the other partner was. I had a partner in my time during the networks class, which was very short lived, and that was a horrible experience because he was, not that it was his fault, but it was a horrible experience because he was quite adept at Python and I hadn’t worked with it for a few terms and we work working with really advanced stuff and he would just type stuff and go “so I just did the xyz what do you think about this other things” and I would have to say “I don’t know”. And so in one assignment like five times he would say, “Well what do you think” and I would say, “Well I don’t know”. I don’t know what you’re doing and I don’t know what’s going on. So after that it was like him doing the assignment which was rough.