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From School to Work to Working at School?
torgosan asks: "After years of school and many years of toiling in the corporate world and being laid-off in one of the seemingly perpetual down-sizings [my former company was employee-owned until a corporate buyout a few years back, after which point it all went downhill - a mini-Enron, as it were, including crooked execs, cooked books, SEC investigations, the whole mess], it appears my days of joblessness may possibly be coming to an end. A small university near my hometown has an opening that has my name written all over it. This is all still early in the process and the offer hasn't come yet but that's not stopping me from researching the target city, moving expenses, cost-of-living comparisons, living arrangements, etc. Taking the position would mean a sizable pay-cut but I need to get back to doing what I love to do and this seems to be 'it'. What I haven't been able to find, though, are the insights into university employment and how it compares to working in the 'real world'.
This would be a staff position working with other staff and professionals and with some interaction with the student body. So my question for you uni workers out there is: What sort of adjustment should be expected? Is the uni workplace as structured as the corporate world? Pet peeves? What are the politics like? I ask as I attended a commuter-school with little campus life and have little to draw on for perspective."
... as a Research Engineer, building robots and helping out grad students with their thesis work. It's a pretty cool job. I get to travel a fair amount, spend a little time at sea for field testing, it's not all desk work. There are other nice things - I get a good amount of vacation time, the benefits are decent.
Downsides: low pay, not very well organized, always chasing money (i.e., writing proposals). Definitely less structured than the corporate world. Students can be fun or infuriating to work with (sometimes both). University politics can be among the ugliest in the world, it's best to try and stay out of the way.
- There's no fixed hours - it depends on the job, obviously, but lots of people seem to show up pretty casually.
- Zero dress code - eccentricity is praised rather than condemned, and no-one bats an eyelid if you wander around barefoot in heavy metal T-shirts and bright blue hair.
- Self-motivated work - there aren't any bosses prowling the cube-farm looking for slackers, so you have to have self-discipline to get anything done
These are all observations as a research student working with and around employees at my university, so I may be somewhat inaccurate.1. Professors are gods: All ideas come from them, even if you thought them up. Let the profs be the thought leaders and you will do OK.
2. Staff positions may be subject to the whimsy of grant-givers: Your position may be tied to long-term research grants or funding that can dry up.
3. Lots of smart people: Profs and grad students will, by and large, be smart and interesting. If you like thinking/talking about new ideas, you will have fun.
4. Slower pace: Universities don't operate on the same timescale as entrepeneural companies. "I need it soon" might mean "I need it next month."
5. YMMV: as with corporate life, specific situations or bosses might suck egregiously or be ludicrously enjoyable.
Good luck!
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I worked in IT for a small company, then switched over to working for a University for a few years, essentially doing the same thing (sysadmin, netadmin, etc). I left that job to come back to the corporate atmosphere about four years ago, and I'm very happy where I am now, politics and all.
At least where I was working, things were very laid back vs. a corporate atmosphere. The pay was less, but it was pretty cushy -- had my own huge office, could pretty much buy whatever I needed, etc. All employees got full tuition reinbursement before having to pay yourself (with no grade requirement), and the courses did not have to do with my job function (I could take piano if I wanted to). Another nice benefit was spouse and children (I didn't have any at the time) get 1/2 tuition at the University.
As for politics, there were some run-ins with the tenured profs, who may have felt a little kingly in their status in the department. Other than that, there really were no politics to speak of.
Why did I leave? Well, I needed to get out and learn more. One frustrating thing I had to deal with was the University's lack of desire to branch out to technology that could possibly do things better for us, or at least test the new tech out to see if it met our needs. Many suppliers would gladly give out free trial gear to a University -- that's BIG bucks for them if they get a sale out of it. Also, since I worked for a smaller department and not the "head" IT department of the University, I felt a bit pushed away from what I really wanted to do. It took me months to convince them I could do a simple copper wiring job in the network closet (which they previously charged our department $200 for each drop we wanted moved or added -- a two-minute job at most!). I wasn't learning anything, and I had too much time available to me to play games in my cushy office (I think I logged more time playing UO in those days than I care to admit). I needed to get my head out of the clouds and get back to a place where I could learn more, branch out more and step back into reality.
Most people I tell this to say I was crazy for leaving such a sweet deal, but they just don't get it. It was a great job to spend one's pre-retirement days doing meaningless, mediocre sysadmin work that never changed, but not for a 20-something trying to make something of himself. If I stayed in that job too much longer, I'd be hard pressed to find a company out there to hire me. As far as I'm concerned, I got out in the nick of time.
Anyway, that's just my experience.
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Yes, it's a job. Yes, you have some sort of schedule. yes, you have a boss, co-workers, etc. That's probably about where the differences stop. As another poster stated, politics are huge around a University. Gossipers tend to run rampant, where, while they're present in the corporate world, they can't be so blatant about it all the time (from my experience.) Budgets are extremely important, and you may have to be there for awhile and make friends before you're ever able to acquire extra finances for a project you'd like to pursue. This, of course, depends on what you'll be doing, and how much your boss wants to take care of you (he probably already has the swing to get some extra funding for you.)
All in all, it's a trip. The thing I wasn't prepared for was the amount of laziness all around me. Granted, I worked in the Facilities Mgmt department, so not faculty or directly involved with the academics, and we had almost all of the union employees at the school. But still, the amount of maintenances guys I found napping, the difficulty in reaching half of the managers (most of which have since been fired, thankfully) was rediculous. And infuriating, considering I was a student employee making $10/hr doing helpdesk with four others making $50k, and I did more than any one of them, and usually more than any two of them combined. Now THAT would have been a nice gig. $50k, 40 hours, work stays at work when I walk out the door.
Anyway, I have since left and stepped into the corporate world, so I'm working backwords from where the poster is headed, but it's amazing the differences I've seen. Where I work now, the politics are there, but seem much more elusive, where in the University, the politics are right there in front of you, every day of every week.
Now that I am "staff", and I have a desk and chair designated for staff, and my manager has a desk and chair designated for a manager, and my principal a desk and chair for a principal, I kind of yearn for that laid-back and more enjoyable atmosphere.
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At some universities, administration bureaucracy is a major problem. Usually, larger and/or older institutions are worse, smaller and/or newer institutions are better, but there are exceptions in both directions.
Academic politics is always bloody. Kissinger's "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small" is apparantly universal. Fortunately, the tradition of lying low and avoiding getting involved is also well established. If you can avoid getting seriosuly involved, that is probably a good thing. If you actively want to get involved, then there is no hope for you :).
Best course of action is almost certainly to talk to few people working there, especially people in the department you hope to be appointed to, and see how they feel about these things.
About the politics of a university.
The Lighter Side of Education...
The Dean:
Leaps tall buildings in a single bound,
is more powerful than a locomotive,
is faster than a speeding bullet,
walks on water,
gives policy to God.
The Department Head:
Leaps short buildings in a single bound,
is more powerful than a switch engine,
is just as fast as a speeding bullet,
walks on water if the sea is calm,
talks with God.
Professor:
Leaps short buildings with a running start and favorable winds,
is almost as powerful as a switch engine,
is slower than a speeding bullet,
walks on water in an indoor swimming pool,
talks with God if special request is approved.
Associate Professor:
Barely clears a quonset hut,
loses tug of war with locomotive,
can fire a speeding bullet,
swims well,
is occasionally addressed by God.
Assistant Professor:
Makes high marks on wall when trying to leap tall buildings,
is run over by locomotive,
can sometimes handle a gun without inflicting self injury,
dog paddles,
talks to animals.
Graduate Student:
Runs into buildings,
recognizes locomotives two out of three times,
is not issued ammunition,
can stay afloat with a life jacket,
talks to walls.
Undergraduate:
Falls over doorstep when trying to enter buildings,
says look at the choo-choo,
wets himself with a water pistol,
plays in mud puddles,
mumbles to himself.
Department Secretary:
Lifts tall buildings and walks under them,
kicks locomotives off the track,
catches speeding bullets in her teeth and eats them,
freezes water with a single glare,
she is God.
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