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What You Should Know When Taking a University Job?
FyreWyr asks: "I've been working professionally for more than 10 years, and recently returned to school to refine my skills, and potentially, to change careers. In the meantime I'm seeking income from my University in the most practical fields, i.e., my old technical career (programming, networking, etc). So, a programming job has become available, and with it, questions. While I've done my share of business consulting, I've never worked within a University pay system, and further, project interviews have not revealed a clear project scope. Wanting to accept the project, I'm now working on a basic project overview WITHOUT compensation so that I can (get it reviewed, and) kick out an appropriate time estimate and salary. Can anyone provide 'wish-I-would-have-known' issues regarding the politics, expectations, and monetary realities of working for a major department within a large University?"
If you are or plan to attend school there, find out what the tuition practices are - some schools significantly cut tuition costs, which will more than compensate for the lower salary (especially since, if I recall correctly, the tuition break is tax free). Also ask about the ability to get in there - when I was looking at a Uni job, they basically said "we can't guarantee it, but we do know a lot of people in the school"
A lower salary, counterbalanced by tuition and other benefits, may be reasonable trade off. Just make sure you will get the benefits before you take the job.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
If it's anything like where I work:
:) ).
1) The stress level is a lot lower than commercial work. You're not going to get mandatory overtime, people have more of a sense of humor (sometimes, myself and others will randomly add drawing onto a whiteboard in the break room during our lunches, so the next time you see it the image has evolved), and you generally don't have an axe hanging over you all the time (although, if you're paid from grants, there is more risk). True flex hours are common, dress codes are more lax, etc. The main issue that people care about is that you get the job done, and do it well, within the deadline.
2) The administration is a huge bureaucracy. It will take forever to get travel reimbursements, requested information, and even changes in employment status. It limps along, though.
3) Salaries are low. Benefits are high. Workplaces tend to be tolerant (race, sexuality, etc) and in general liberal (depending on your views, this could be a good or bad thing; for me, it means I can adorn my office bulletin boards with antiwar/pro-civil-liberties posters, and only get good comments about them
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
i've worked at the university of texas at austin in several departments for about 8 years doing technical work, and still work for the university now. i have worked for about a year and a half in a couple of startups, and done some conslutting on the side over the past 10 years, so i am not speaking totally from within a vacuum of outside experience.
i started out as a student worker, with very little (3 months) outside experience, but with a healthy curiosity and a few years of hacking on stuff on my own time. i have since graduated, been promoted 4 times, achieved approximately an 5-fold salary increase, and changed departments twice. i've had a net very positive experience working at the university, and recommend it to anyone who is not already on the dot-com-dollars treadmill.
however, i think it's a lot like any other job, for the most part--if you can stand the salary, and you like your boss and co-workers and most importantly enjoy what you do, all the piddly shit like appeasing the bureaucracy and occasionally getting trumped by a PhD kind of falls by the wayside.
since i'm basically getting paid the same thing i was as a worker at the startups i was at (minus sometimes worthless stock options and signing bonuses), i include only the pros and cons that are university specific--for instance, i've always had flex time and an extremely casual dress code (tshirts and sandals have always been allowed), both in industry and in academia. and of course, you have to evaluate your situation; i've always worked for research-heavy departments, but a job at the student union (doing the same kind of work) carries a different sort of interaction potential--not so many people who are actually into learning, more morons and bureaucrats.
pros:
- 40 hour work week. i love my work, but even more than that, i love having a life outside of work. i actually get *paid* for any overtime and it is almost never mandatory.
- great job security. if they even want to fire me for any reason not related to breaking the law, they have to give me a year's notice (they have to lodge a complaint that i am told about, and let it sit for a year before i can be dismissed).
- cool toys. we get donations of the darnedest things. i was probably the first person in my state to run linux on a pentium pro (got a prerelease box from intel to do benchmarking on. that took a researcher one day, after which he told me to do whatever i wanted with it). we have some huge clusters, and sun is constantly trying to donate interesting (if not amazing) things to us, like a cluster of thin clients and a beefy server to back them up.
- very relaxed atmosphere; there are deadlines but there aren't many of them and they're rarely hard. nobody has ever said "your failure to deliver on time is costing us $X!"
- some free tuition (currently a $6000/year value if you play the system for all it's worth), potentially leading to a degree if you want it to.
- working in an environment where the value of learning is well-understood, and continued education is encouraged and to some degree funded.
i mostly just enjoy working with smart people, and with people who are motivated to learn about solutions to their problems instead of having me solve the problems for them.
- access to all of the resources of the university: gym, olympic swimming and diving center, libraries, libraries, libraries, museums, university-only events (mo rocca once came to speak; you needed a university ID to get in, for instance. usually concerts, plays, sporting events, etc are cheaper for university personell in addition to students). as well, the university subscribes to a lot of services (lexis nexis, encyclopaedia britannica online, OED online, online magazine/research repositories, etc) to which i automatically get access.
- best 401k plan i've been offered. vests after a few years and gives a 2.3% * (years employed at any salary) * (highest average annua