what do you do when your lab partners suck?

[^=^]

I hate my physics lab (love the class though). The problem is that I have horrible lab partners. I asked the lab instructor and he said you can't change them and it really bothers me. They can't speak proper English and they come to class without having read the experiment (ok???)...During lab I end up having to do all of the work, checking all the calculations, etc..The other lab groups are super personal about everything and they won't even help if you have general questions as to how you should setup whatever it is your doing...Arrrhh. I just feel like dropping the class...Advice? Similar stories anyone? 🙁

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[liverfingers]

OK, I get that you don't like your physics lab group members, but what do you suppose your TA should do? I mean logistically, how can she/he remedy the situation? Switch you with another student? How is that fair to that student? Allow you to join another group, when the lab experiments were designed for the original number of people? I've had ****ty lab partners before... best thing to do is just go in, do your thing and get out. 🙁

 

[fastnfurious]

that's why I always take labs with friends now after that. It sucks when you have a slow partner and spend 1-2 hours more than most other people. My suggestion is just tough it out. what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger haha

 

[jult24er]

Invite her to study in your dorm room?

 

[ChubbyChaser]

Tell them you would prefer to work alone?? Or get your numbers and get out...dont worry about sharing info, if they dont wanna put in any effort.

 

[joponoda]

I hate my physics lab (love the class though). The problem is that I have horrible lab partners. I asked the lab instructor and he said you can't change them and it really bothers me. They can't speak proper English and they come to class without having read the experiment (ok???)...During lab I end up having to do all of the work, checking all the calculations, etc..The other lab groups are super personal about everything and they won't even help if you have general questions as to how you should setup whatever it is your doing...Arrrhh. I just feel like dropping the class...Advice? Similar stories anyone? 🙁

Every lab I have taken I do most/all of the work and end up becoming a tutor the my lab partner. I guess that is just what happens then you are motivated to learn and are surrounded by students that just want to get by. At least you will be forced to learn/understand the material well 😀.

 

[^=^]

I'm kinda stuck. Tmw is the last day to drop with a refund. The problem is, I can't imagine doing the rest of the labs all by myself. They're designed to be done in groups and doing all of the work by yourself is pretty hard. I mean, you know how sometimes even you get stuck and you expect your partners to chime in and help, in my case there's no hope for that. Anyhow, I'm sure that we'll probably get like 5/10 on today's lab... 😡 🙁 ? Like todays lab, we had a round circle thing with angles on it and we were supposed to hang weights from the sides and find the balanced resultant vector using components...my partners looked at me and asked "what are components?"...{it was all of todays lecture!!}

 

[kevinm]

I hate my physics lab (love the class though). The problem is that I have horrible lab partners. I asked the lab instructor and he said you can't change them and it really bothers me. They can't speak proper English and they come to class without having read the experiment (ok???)...During lab I end up having to do all of the work, checking all the calculations, etc..The other lab groups are super personal about everything and they won't even help if you have general questions as to how you should setup whatever it is your doing...Arrrhh. I just feel like dropping the class...Advice? Similar stories anyone? 🙁

I had a very similar experience in an engineering class that I took sophomore year. Laboratory Introduction to Embedded Control (yes, it was as much fun as it sounds). My lab partners were two guys from Hong Kong who spoke in Cantonese with one another (one spoke comprehensible English and translated for the other), and a girl who just...didn't talk. At all. To anyone.

I remained polite and, while I wound up doing all the work, I did my best to try to help the others understand the material. Perhaps the worst mistake I made was allowing the two Chinese guys to write a portion of the report, but in hind sight, a lot of the mistakes they made were really funny. I got a kick out of reading it and correcting it.

Try to do your best and don't worry about how long it takes to finish a lab. Most people find that if they can teach the material to someone else, it helps them in their own comprehension of it.

 

[^=^]

I totally have the ESL thing going on, lol..Not that I mind it or anything (maybe), but I mean they should make English a pre-req for science classes. I had a group of ESLs that left the gas on at their bench and the lab instructor was pissed the next day since there was gas all over the chemistry dept..😱

 

[HumidBeing]

I thought that English WAS a pre-req for college classes. Aren't there TOEFL score requirements to take them.

 

[kevinm]

I totally have the ESL thing going on, lol..Not that I mind it or anything (maybe), but I mean they should make English a pre-req for science classes. I had a group of ESLs that left the gas on at their bench and the lab instructor was pissed the next day since there was gas all over the chemistry dept..😱

I'd be happier if they made it a pre-req for TAs, first... I love the clever wording my school uses: "each TA is tested for english competence." Right now, I'm taking a probability course, and I'm pretty sure that they could replace the TA with someone right off the street--we'd be getting the same quality help.

 

[FlowLimited]

Like todays lab, we had a round circle thing with angles on it and we were supposed to hang weights from the sides and find the balanced resultant vector using components...my partners looked at me and asked "what are components?"...{it was all of todays lecture!!}

Ah, the ol' force table. Makes me nostalgic for the good old days.

 

[TheBateman]

what do you do when your lab partners suck?

I go on SDN and ***** about it. 👍

But seriously, everyone runs into incompetent partners/classmates at some point. Just weather the semester and it'll probably make you a better student for it.

 

[funkydrmonkey]

Whenever they do not know an answer, bite them. 😱 This will inculcate fear into them and then they will want to learn the stuff for fear of you biting them😀

Oh, and btw I have been reading about bioethics all day, and I wanted to see the response of something posted, that would be unethical... or something like that...

 

[KnuxNole]

Deal with them. I am probably one of the worst lab partners you can have due to me messing stuff up(breaking funnels and burning slides FTW), not paying attention to lecture, and playing it safe instead of rushing everything...but I don't think any of my lab partners hated me for that. You just have to be nice to them, that way it won't feel awkward. After all, labs are supposed to be the "fun" part of your basic science classes. If noone else in your group seems motivated to work, then you can ignite that flame.

 

[CHAINCHOMPER]

I like to bully my lab partners. It's hilarious

 

[calnation]

I would straight up tell them what's wrong. I had this same problem except luckily it was a class where I could switch around lab partners easily. But for a few weeks I was stuck with this esl guys and he wouldn't even come with the lab procedure or anything.

Finally I just got frustrated and in plain english I was like, "You need to bring your lab procedure and have read it before you come to class. Do you expect me to do everything?" And after that the guy got the picture and was much better. Sometimes, because they're from a foreign country, esl's don't understand the subtle messaging system we use here. It needs to be said really clearly.

Who knows. These guys might have gotten the impression that you want to do all the work. Especially if you came off as being smarter than them (which most likely you did).

 

[Jolie South]

I had the same issue in a bio lab in undergrad. I just kinda coordinated things and gave each of them tasks that were impossible to mess up. then, i took care of the important stuff like data collection.

i doubt complaining to your TA would change much, but maybe if you have questions in lab you could ask them then.

i agree with the comment about esl folks. they don't necessarily pick up on our subtle English clues. maybe being more clear would help as well.

 

[Climberak]

I agree with the above posters. Talk to your lab mates and see if they can change their habits. The passive aggressive approach hardly ever works in the real world. If you have a problem with someone, you have to let them know about it. Most of the time they are completely oblivious to any wrongdoing on their part.

If that doesn't work, there's always sabotage.

 

[iluvassdeeanne]

I hate my physics lab (love the class though). The problem is that I have horrible lab partners. I asked the lab instructor and he said you can't change them and it really bothers me. They can't speak proper English and they come to class without having read the experiment (ok???)...During lab I end up having to do all of the work, checking all the calculations, etc..The other lab groups are super personal about everything and they won't even help if you have general questions as to how you should setup whatever it is your doing...Arrrhh. I just feel like dropping the class...Advice? Similar stories anyone? 🙁

Drop it.

 

[Lukkie]

i was always the clueless one that didn't read the lab manual before the lab... didn't matter much since all my partners were extreme gunners and were willing to do all the work while i just watched. i'm sure they whined about it to their friends afterwards but hey I got my grade.

 

[TehDoc]

Just do the work and help him/her get that A+.

 

[BlueElmo]

Just don't do any work either. If they are concerned about their grades, they will put in some effort.

 

[Lukkie]

Just don't do any work either. If they are concerned about their grades, they will put in some effort.

nope

 

[jr doctor in sd]

Hahaha I feel so bad for you OP, I was in your EXACT situation this past Winter quarter.

1) We had a 36 year old or so in my lab group who was from a community college taking her first university (it's a hardcore university for science) course and she sat there as if what we were doing with weights and strings was rocket science (she was worthless in the lab group). 😡

2) We had a young girl who was one of those extremely unattractive but still attempting to look cool/pretty by wearing extra tight jeans and getting a horribly fake tan girls. She was texting on her cell phone the ENTIRE class and would occasionally chime in to ask me what the answers were for the seemingly hour-long-calculations. (Again, worthless in the lab group). 😡

3) We had a young Asian guy with glasses. I figured he'd be my last hope for help haha. What did I find (of course) - he is a freakin' WEIRDO. We had a lab where we had to do collisions with cars and use meters to record graphs, etc. He ended up having the most evil/creepy grin on his face and would smash the cars into each other as hard as he could (causing them to fall on the floor frequently making the TAs and other lab groups stare at us as if we were ALL ******ed when it was only him). So basically he came with his anime backpack and destructive tendencies to only hurt us and prevent us from leaving the classroom even one minute early (while other groups sometimes left an hour or more early). (Again, worthless 😡)

So what did I do? Only thing I could do - do it all by myself and try my god**** hardest NOT to b**** out these other lab members. So, whenever they asked me for my calculated numbers I'd tell them the equation I used to find the stuff. Then they'd say oh ok but what did u get when you plugged it in? I'd hand them my calculator and tell them to check my work. If they did it, good. If not, good (because rarely I'd give em a wrong equation on purpose out of spite) haha. I got an A in the lab class and I pray that they all failed but they probably also did well due to my hard work. Result = I got an A (much harder-earned than necessary but an A is an A)

 

[saveourpens]

haha, last year in chem lab we were supposed to work in pairs, but my lab partner and me combined with another group.

We split the runs, copied each others results/calculations, and left 40min-1hour earlier than everyone else.

 

[bcat85]

Tell them you would prefer to work alone?? Or get your numbers and get out...dont worry about sharing info, if they dont wanna put in any effort.

This is waht I would do.. I had a couple labs like this and I just sucked it up and did the labs myself. If no one is interested, they can go back and figure it out for themselves. Alternately, you could force them to do an experiment and only give minimum input... this sometimes inspires people to understand that they don't know what they're doing.

 

[Cegar]

Do the data collection yourself. Delegate easy but time consuming tasks to them.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

1. Tell them that they suck and that you don't appreciate their unwillingness to help or insistence on speaking a language you cannot understand. Then...

2. Just do all the work by yourself. You'll learn pretty quickly in medicine that there are alot of situations where you have to do everything by yourself. It'll be good practice. And...

3. Remember that their suckitude will catch up to them but that it is not your job to make sure that happens. I had a pretty crappy physics lab partner in undergrad as well, slow, annoying, not helpful -- but definitely pre-med. I think he works in a cubicle now.

 

[choolMed]

Wow many people have given great, thoughtful advice to how to deal with your dilemma. But what if I said this is not a dilemma. This is a test for you to improve your being (or call it spirit or soul or unconscious personality)... only when you get tested are you able to improve it, so there is some suffering involved. Suffering is good though, that's the only way we can improve ourselves as people. Maybe your 'crappy' lab partners are to test that you are a motivated learner, or maybe to test your ability to get along with all types of people, which is definitely an attractive trait for a doctor. Maybe it's a time for you teach others. Teaching is written all over religious works. There should be no greater joy then sharing information/knowledge with others! This experience will be memorable and change the way you act as a person. I know it goes against our natural/unconscoius egoic emotions which turn into thoughts, but if you believe this is for a cosmically good reason, even if your brain doesnt have the forsight to understand why you have these partners right now. anyway you get my point. lol peace

 

[Retsage]

Labs are for socializing. Just make friends.

 

[175961]

In the labs that I've had where we worked in groups we always got to give everyone in the group a grade at the end of the semester. Is that the case with yours?? If so keep working hard and doing what you need to so you get a good grade and then just give them the grade you think they deserve.