Partly Cloudy, 64°
Unsure whether to prioritize individual contributions to the project or his own friendships with people, sophomore Max Fiegel could not decide what order to write group members’ names at the top of his ENGN90 project.
“I must have spent twenty minutes copying and pasting our four names into different orders,” reported Fiegel, adding that he used his knowledge of introductory statistics to figure out how many combinations he’d have to try out. “The stakes just seemed so high. We were able to work together really well and I didn’t want anything to turn sour because I put someone’s name before someone else’s.”
Fiegel went on to admit he had volunteered himself as the one to turn in the assignment precisely so that he could decide where to place his own name but was only now coming to grips with what he actually signed up to do.
“On one hand I deserve to be recognized for basically doing the whole thing,” reported Fiegel, pointing out that he did the Analysis paragraph which outweighs all the other paragraphs. “But on the other hand, I can’t help but wonder ’Who am I to make this decision? What gives me this authority?’”
“I mean there’s always alphabetical order," continued Fiegel, unaware his group members were also on the Google Doc and could see him rearranging the names. “That’s true neutral. But wouldn’t our professor want to know who contributed the most? Maybe ordering them by class year is the most respectful.”
At press time, Fiegel was immediately regretting his decision as he passed in a hard copy of the project.
