When I was in elementary/middle/high school, it depended on the situation and the kids involved as to whether or not I'd try to get out of it.
I worked alone in Bio for dissection and did very well. We simply had an odd number of kids in the class so I volunteered to work by myself (which I usually did if there was an odd number).
In ninth grade geography and English, I had several friends in each class and never really minded the group work, basically I'd be the boss of the group, push for efficiency, and then we could all sit around and hang out at the end of the period.
Eighth grade math and science were also good, I had a good lab partner and the same guy was my math partner whenever we had to work in pairs. I got to know him pretty well and we're still close to this today.
Sixth grade science started out with me working with a guy who isn't too intellectual (nice guy, just not too bright) but in mid-year we were allowed to pick new partners and I wound up with one of my best friends.
Also, when we had locker partners, I got to pick one of my buddies to be my locker partner, which was a good thing. The year we didn't pick our own there were many disputes.
In chemistry, we worked in a group of five. One of the guys in there was a good friend of mine. There was a domineering one who sometimes would quarrel with me but we usually did well. I also met another one of my friends in here, she came into the class mid-year and wound up in our group.
I wasn't so lucky in physics. Not that great of a group of kids in there.
I had good kids in Geometry and Economics and Precalculus. Did not have good groups to work with in English in tenth or eleventh grade but had a good partner to work with in twelfth.
The trend here seems to be that I will do the group work provided I have one or more friends in there or if I need some help on a certain concept, in which case I'll try to work with someone I know reasonably well. Otherwise, I do try to push for independence.
Rooming on the school trips was another story, I almost always got my own room. The one year I couldn't do that I was fortunate enough to be in with my buddies (although we lost a lot of sleep because we were up all night playing Nintendo games).