Guide to Partners

You are allowed to work on the CS103 problem sets in pairs. Working on theory problems in pairs is a skill in and of itself, and this guide is designed to help you make the best use of this opportunity.

Should I Work With a Partner?

We’re often asked whether it’s a good idea to work with a partner in CS103. The answer is “it depends, but in general it’s a good idea to have a problem set partner.”

There are many advantages to having a problem set partner. Here’s an unsorted list of why it can be helpful to work in a pair:

  • Your problem set partner can serve as a sounding board for ideas as you’re working through trickier problems.
  • Having a problem set partner keeps you accountable to make slow and steady progress on the problem set over the week, giving you more time to digest content and ask for help if you need it.
  • Once you’ve written up an answer to a problem, your problem set partner can read over your answer and offer feedback. Conversely, reading over your partner’s answers will improve your own ability to critique proofs and other mathematical structures.
  • It’s a great way to meet other folks in the class and make lasting friends!

That said, some people feel most comfortable working on their own. If you’re in that camp, that’s totally fine! You certainly don’t need to have a problem set partner in CS103, and it’s completely reasonable to work through all the problem sets on your own. Lots of students do just that and have a good experience with the course.

How Do I Find a Partner?

There are lots of ways to find a problem set partner. Many people meet partners organically simply by physically being on campus. CS103 is a pretty big class, and so you might know other people in the course through your dorm, through student groups, etc. If you attend classes in person, you can introduce yourself to the people around you and see if any of them would be interested in working with you.

Many people find problem set partners through our online EdStem forum. It’s perfectly normal for folks to make posts there saying they’re looking for a partner, kind of like a classified ad. So if you’re looking for a partner, feel free to peruse EdStem and either reply to an existing request or to make one of your own.

One last option – if you’re looking for a partner but aren’t sure who to work with, we can automatically pair you with someone else in the course. We’ll send out a Google Form early in the quarter asking folks if they’d like us to match them with someone else in the course. We’ll then take everyone who’s interested and run a matchmaking algorithm to suggest someone else to work with.

Can I Switch Partners?

Yes, absolutely! You are not required to work with the same partner all the time. Our only rule is that if you’ve started working on a problem set with someone, you need to submit that specific problem set jointly. After the due date, you’re free to switch who you’re working with for the next problem set (or to do the problem set solo if you’d like). This happens all the time, either because someone’s partner decides to take CS103 in another quarter, or because the partnership wasn’t a good match, or because three friends are rotating partnering with each other on the weekly problem sets.

How Should I Work With My Partner?

Thank you for asking this question – it’s important to be strategic with how you complete assignments in a pair. In fact, historically we’ve found that folks who work well with their partners tend to do markedly better than students who don’t work effectively with the people they’re partnered with.

Let’s begin with the Big List of Bad Ideas. When working with a partner, make sure not to do the following.

  • Do not have one person do all the work and the other person just attach their name at the end. This is borderline dishonest (if you’re submitting as a pair, we expect that both you and your partner actually did the work) and is one of the most common ways we see people have high problem set scores and then flame out on exams. Remember – your ultimate goal is to master the material and techniques we’re teaching, not simply to get through the week’s problem set.
  • Do not have one person do half the problems and the other person do the other half. You and your partner are not likely to end up being good cooks if one of you just practices sautĂ©ing and the other just practices roasting. You and your partner are not likely to end up being good woodworkers if one of you just practices using a table saw an the other just practices using a miter saw. You and your partner are not likely to end up being good musicians if one of you just practices playing pieces in major scales and the other another just practices playing pieces in minor scales. Every problem on the problem sets is calibrated to hit some particular nuance of the material, and if you don’t work through all of them you’ll miss some important skills and concepts.
  • Do not take turns completing assignments. The material in CS103 builds on itself, and if you take a week off from working problems you can easily get yourself into a point where you can’t get caught back up.

With all that out of the way, what should you do? There are many different ways to partner with someone effectively, and we don’t want to give a “one-size-fits-all” approach. For each problem on the problem sets, we recommend picking one of the following approaches:

  • Solve the problem separately, then compare and synthesize. In this approach, the two people working as partners each do their best to complete the problem individually. Once they’re done or mostly done, they come together and read over each other’s answer, giving feedback about what they liked (“oh, I didn’t think of that – that’s so clever!”) and what they think needs work (“I see what you’re going for here, but I think X works in way Y rather than way Z”). Finally, the two partners write a single final answer jointly, synthesizing ideas from each solution. This gives both partners significant practice critiquing proofs (a hugely valuable skill!) and lets each person benefit from the other’s insights.

  • Work each problem together, trading off who leads. In this approach, both partners work together on each problem simultaneously, bouncing ideas off one another and offering real-time feedback and critiques of ideas. To make sure that both partners get experience with problem-solving, on each problem one person will take a lead role, choosing which paths to explore, drawing pictures, etc. The other person will take a supporting role, offering feedback about ideas the lead person generates (“yeah, that sounds good!,” “I remember concept $X$ working differently – doesn’t it mean $Y$ and $Z\text{?,}$” “I think you meant $A'$ when you said $A$ there.,” etc.) The partners trade off the lead role to ensure that both of them learn both to synthesize new ideas and to evaluate potential routes.

  • Do some preliminary exploration, then come together to solve things. This is a hybrid of the two above approaches. Each partner spends some time individually looking over the problem set question and trying out some ideas. This could include things like setting up proofs (what will you assume and what do you need to show?), drawing pictures (“here’s my visualization of what this problem is asking us”), and reviewing relevant lecture topics (“I think this is asking something along the same lines as this lecture example”). From there, the partners can either decide to try to solve the problem individually using what they’ve found or work on the problem jointly.

Beyond these strategies, though, there’s a number of points of General Good Citizenship that you should keep in mind when working in a pair. All of these, by the way, will transfer to the workplace and to other personal relationships. 😃

  • Agree on your method of communication. Will you be communicating over text, over email, or some other means? And what’s a reasonable turnaround time? Different people feel differently about this. Some people like using email to communicate and are fine with 24-hour delays in responding. Other folks like texting and want immediate responses. What matters less is how you choose to stay in touch with one another than that you agree on what the parameters are. Talking about this up front will make things a lot easier.
  • Communicate expectations. We listed three reasonable approaches to the problem sets above. Make sure you don’t spend the week solving everything individually preparing for a joint meeting while your partner is expecting to work the problems together with you each day.
  • Be civil. Don’t tell your partner they’re stupid because they made a small error. Don’t ask how your partner could not have known something if they don’t know it. That’s just basic decency.

How Do I Submit Work With a Partner?

If you’re working with a partner, you must make a single joint submission. The good news is that GradeScope makes this easy – one partner uploads the joint submission, then adds the other person as a partner. If you forgot to add your partner’s name when making the submission (please try to avoid this, though it’s less uncommon than you’d think), you can always go back later to add them in.

If a problem set has both a coding component and a written component, then you should make one joint submission for each of them.

What Happens If We Can’t Agree on Something?

It sometimes happens that you and your partner won’t be able to agree on something. If this is something of a technical nature (one person says “I think we’re supposed to do this in way X” and the other says “I think we’re supposed to do this in way Y”), you can always ask on EdStem or stop by office hours. Disputes based on a factual question are often easy to resolve, and you’ll both learn something from the process. Often times, we find that when there’s a genuine factual disagreement, it’s on a nuanced point and we’re very glad people asked!

In other cases, these disagreements can be a bit harder to resolve. For example, imagine that your partner shows up to a meeting completely unprepared, or that your partner has simply stopped responding to texts or emails, or that your partner just plain isn’t nice to you. It’s not fun when that happens.

So what should you do? This will ultimately be specific to your situation, but you have some options. One option would be to try to patch things up with your partner. That’s a great life skill to develop. You can get advice about how best to do this by talking to your dorm staff, to your academic advisor, by taking a class in negotiation or interpersonal dynamics (we have them here, and they’re great!), or by doing some searching online.

Another option would be to make it to the end of the week’s problem set through whatever compromises are necessary and then stop working with the person. Sometimes you and the other person just don’t work well together, and it’s good to move on. If so, we’re sorry the experience didn’t go well, but hopefully it serves as a good learning experience for future partnerships.