If you are paired with the right person I believe this has the potential to drive you forward and keep you motivated. I experienced pair programming when I was still studying.

We had a lot of team assignments and when I worked with my best friend, instead of splitting the work like most of the other students, we just sat both in front of one computer and went through all of it. The one guy writing the code is always getting double-checked by the other guy and that way you eliminate most of the little bugs that slip past your judgement when you code alone.

Certainly a most enjoyable method of programming, although whether it is an economically viable strategy I could not tell.