Slashdot Mirror
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?"
(1) smile, nod... repeat...
(2) While doing (1), watch out carefully for impossible/stupid features proposed by the middle management
(3) Return to (1).
...know if it was once the set of a "College Girls Gone Wild" movie.
Freshmen hotties, drunk sorority chicks, raging parties that involve underage drinking and streaking.
Holy shit, what the fuck am I talking about? I am getting old :)
Imagine, as a Linux Administrator with over 7 years professional experience, you are put under the technical guidance of a physicist with 0 years professional experience as a system admin. Yeah, the University scene can truly suck.
What are you a grad student?
I work at a major university and get paid. Why would you work and not get paid, did you learn nothing form the dot.bomb?
They feel good paying alot of money, whether or not the end result works well or is anywhere near worth it...
Money is tight at a lot of universities.
Don't ask for anything.
If you do ask, don't be hurt when they say no.
Pretty Pictures!
If you really want to get the most bang for your buck, get a research position. It will help immensely if you apply to graduate school.
Never...
...check your references.
Always...
I think the kids really dig it when I "get down" verbally.
(Bonus points to first person who can identify the gag.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Err, I mean Parking Services.
Always have a scapegoat it's the motto of universities. Always have a fallguy. Someone you can point the finger at, because realize you will be blamed for something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with you at some point.
"The program doesn't run on windows."
"You asked for a linux platform, it's running flawlessly on linux."
"TOLD YOU GUYS, IT'S JOHNS FAULT IT DOESN'T WORK!"
believe dat!
Could it really be that much different than working for a large, faceless corporation? The same problem seems to crop up wherever one works--dealing with other people.
Personally, I've never had a job that the most challenging part of the position wasn't learning to get things done by 'working the system.' The technical aspects of the job paled in comparison.
Make sure you have a written agreement about policies and what you're job is in explicit details and what they are giving you and have it signed by yourself and a Uni representative. This way if they say "oh we never said we'd do that for you", you can save your ass and whip out your contract, saying, "Yes. You did." :)
Oh yeah and don't forget about the partying ^_^
Sounds like a perfect project for incremental test-driven development. They don't know exactly what they want and neither do you. Decide on a fair pay rate, get an overview of their vision for the whole project, then find out what is most important, and settle on some functionality that you can deliver in a couple of weeks or a month. Then deliver it and ask what they want next. Read "Extreme Programming Explained" if you haven't already, then look for material on "XP for one".
1) Don't expect anyone to know what's going on, even the people who hired you. That's 'the tech department's job'. They're administrators. If they know how to turn on the computer, concider yourself lucky.
2) Don't expect the tech department to know about your project. Or care about it. Or help in any way. You're just a student, after all.
3) Don't expect anyone in any department to know what's happened previously with the project. That was 'the last guy's job'... and the guy before that and before that. You might be a trained professional, but they were students who hadn't finished their CS degree yet. Be prepared to start from scratch.
Yeah, so that's basically what to expect. The administrators are too far removed from the technology to know what you're doing. The in-house IT department can't be bothered with your little project when they have a network to maintain. Anyone who used to do your job was unskilled, untrained, and didn't document anything.
Okay, so it's basically like working for a regular company...
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I work for a university. My department researches novel methods of food processing and packaging. In the three years I've been here the most apparent trend has been that the faculty wants to do the most possible work with the least possible funding. So many of my projects have had lofty goals that were not met because: A)the funds we had were not enough or B)the facilities we have are not properly equipped Its hardly surprising that the department I work for is reorganizing so that we're run more like a business and less like a university. The faculty here have been flying by the seat of their pants without "long term" project goals for so long that it's starting to negatively impact our work.
Please go thru the last week or so of http://userfriendly.org/static/ cartoons. It will prove enlightening.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
You will get paid terribly. However, being only moderately competent is enough to hold your job. Since performance and pay are not strongly linked, you can work at a leasurly pace without worrying much.
Adjust to the academic lifestyle. Your principle worries should be:
What parking do you get and how much will it cost you?
Do you get an office? Is it a shared office?
Working at the University is great. There are no pressures of a big corporation fighting its way through the competition. You can collaborate with other departments to reach a common goal. Universities are usually state funded so you have a pretty good chance of beating the dot bomb eras. Lastly, the pay is 10-20% under market, but the benefits are great! Hey I even got to finish my degree for only $3.00 per semester. Woo hoooooo
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.
Specifically, make double extra sure that your first paycheck is going to go through. Make sure your appointment paperwork gets from your boss to the department, from the department to the College, from the College to University Payroll, and that you're "in the system" at every step.
Be a very squeaky wheel, but keep in mind that no one likes a pushy newcomer. I've you're too squeaky, you go from "squeaky wheel" to "boy who cried wolf" (for any future encounters with the paperwork gods and goddesses).
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
If you're working for the University, forget all that real world experience. Just do what you feel like, look busy, and program something crappy right before they ask for it. That's what I did. Actually worked out suprizingly well.
I picked a new language for every project I worked on, learning java and perl while getting paid. Not to mention I learned how to raise levels on a mud while looking productive.
Then again, I was young, not taken seriously, and underpaid. YMMV
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
I worked in industry, returned to school and took a position much like you are doing now. I'm now back in industry, but it was fun.
Issues:
1. Scope Creep - like anywhere but with "free"
2. Extreme Personalities - the Academic world thrives on personality clashes.
3. Competence - if you are good at one thing they'll want you to do 100, make sure you draw the boundaries in a nice way.
Benefits:
1. Very amiable atmosphere
2. Softer politics - usually they just want you to look stupid, not get canned.
3. Great intellectual environment - it truly is nice to be surrounded by people with an average IQ above 110.
Go for it, be professional and courteous and they will love you because they are not often privy to true professionals who are good at what they do.
Take things in stride and try not to let the little things get to you because there will be a culture shock.
You should know what you're getting paid. That's all that matters to me. :)
I've worked for private for-profit and not-for-profit universities. First, don't expect a lot of money. If you are, find another job. Second, look at first.
I got lucky in that I have a boss who's as much a Linux/Open Source advocate as I am. I was hired on to migrate our department's distance learning system from a Windows/Cold Fusion platform to a Linux/PHP platform. What's cooler is that I pretty much have free reign to do my job in any way I want, as long as the job gets done and I keep in contact with my boss to let him know what I'm doing.
What I wish I had known before signing on, though, was that no one at this University, at any level (except the very highest, of course) has gotten a salary increase in at least four years; and I am not exaggerating. People are getting the same amount of money that they were four years ago. Not a single additional dime has been given to anyone; you could be doing the best job possible and saving your department a billion dollars a year, and you'd get the same raise as the lump who sits behind the desk and picks his nose all day long: which is to say, zero. And thanks to our state's budgeting woes and the current governor's budget proposals, it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.
At least we get more holidays per year than people in the private sector. And this year we got two additional paid days off at Christmas to make up for the miserable salary increase issue.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
I work as a helpdesk manager/administrator at a major university.
I have to say I like the variety of people I deal with. We support macs; OS 9, OS X (jaguar,panther, and now forced to support tiger,), win 98, w2000,etc.. and have a pretty heterogeneous computing environment. Our end user base is very eclectic (as opposed to working at a company and being "nick the computer guy", so lots of potential to meet intelligent phd's, etc... Plus a college can foster a good learning environment. Benefits are very good, but needless to say, pay is not so good. Especially if you live in a coastal city where a decent 1 bedroom apartment costs $1100+/mnth. My boss is a network admin, and this helps quite a bit, as opposed to a business manager or a non-techie,. A good job environment also depends on the trust you build with the people around you. If people trust you, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and as long as you can prove yourself you can use open source apps like request tracker, openssh, linux distros, or whatever you like to get'er done. This is my first job after graduation from college, so I can't complain.However, unless you're a director/high level manager type, you can forget about saving money for a house, etc.. (of course depends on your location...).
Bottom line you can shoot for two things: you can shoot to settle and not expect to get any raises but secure your benefits, and a decent retirement package. OR you can be young, out of college, and looking for a good experience, pending you find a good boss that will keep pushing you uphill. If you're looking to make a lot of dough and want to do develop new novel software and products wth 80 hour work weeks, join a startup.
Insinct is stronger than Upbringing - Irish Proverb
It depends on the size of the University, the role of the department in the University, and the nature of the job. My experience has been with the University of Iowa, a 30000 student research university with an attached regional hospital. There are 2 central IT groups on campus (hospital and central academic campus), and about 3000 smaller departmental IT groups. Generally, the larger IT departments are better managed, better staffed, and better funded than the smaller departments. Management also tends to be skilled at managing people. Smaller departments vary widely. I've worked for both central IT groups, and I once accidentally took a small departmental job. I don't think I'd ever take a small department job again. Usually, the hardest thing to do is figure out what the salaries are going to be. If it's a public institution, chances are that salaries are public information. Call the HR department to find out the mean salary for the job title you're interested in.
Universities are rife with buerocrats who can't make up their minds as to what they want. You'll end up going the same project 14 times before you finally get it approved by all doubtless 87 people who have to decide that it works for them. And the bottom line is that they probably won't end up using what you develop anyway.
I'm in pretty much the same boat you are in. After working for 8 years, I decided to go back to university to finish my Bachelor of Computer Science, which I pissed away (read: failed out of) the first time due to laziness and having too much fun. One difference this time around is that I'm more mature, and so I'm doing much better academically. The other major difference is that tuition here costs about 2.5 times as much now as 10 years ago! So I, too, am working at the university in the summers to earn enough dough to pay myself through school. I'm doing coding and research for a CS prof, and enjoying it. I don't know what you're so hesitant about. Take the job (if they'll give it to you) and have fun with it. Politics? Who cares? Every place of employ has politics. It really shouldn't be too bad for you, because a) you're not very important; and b) it's just a temporary job, not a career. As for salary, don't expect to make anywhere close to what you would in the real world, despite your qualifications. I'm making about half. If you demand too much, you might be passed over for any one of a hundred eager young students. Go into it thinking of it more like a co-op job than some kind of high-paying consulting job. This is still much better than the alternative, which is a low-paying deadend job like McD's. It's also much more interesting work, and it will look good on a resume. Stop talking about it and just do it. You really have nothing to lose. Working for a prof is not too bad. My boss is pretty easy going. He's flexible about what I do; I get to lead as much as follow. The pay is not coming out of his pocket, so he does not put too much pressure on me. Also, he's pretty busy, so I only talk to him 1-2 times per week. The rest of the time I'm doing my own thing, working at my own pace. Oh, one other advantage is that this can give you a taste of what research is like. This will help you decide if you want to go on to post-graduate studies. I know I don't; I'm itching to get back into the workforce. But this has still been a good experience. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any specific questions.
In my experience, the highest order bit in deciding to work for a University is understanding that they sell degrees. That implies that there's a pecking order that is fundamentally related to degrees because they are pretty much honorbound to make what they sell seem important.
I recall an interview at Stanford when I was just starting out in my career. I'd only ever worked at MIT as research staff since graduating with my Bachelor's, and I was interviewing with a PostDoc there. He was very arrogant and said to me, "I can't tell you what you'll be making, but I can tell you what you won't be making, which is $39K." (This is a long time ago, and the absolute magnitudes will likely have changed, but the numbers are important relatively speaking within this story.) It immediately alerted me to the fact that (a) salaries are dictated by degree, and (b) presumably since he had a PhD and I did not, he was saying that my salary would peak just below his. After this arrogant treatment, you can imagine I was pleased as punch to get an offer of $38K, even though I got better offers from the commercial world and decided to go with one of those. An unanswered question is whether my salary would have peaked at the entry level or if the PostDoc was just confused. But surely equity is going to suggest that your salary won't easily exceed professorial salaries, and such salaries may be publicly findable, so it's worth finding out what your upper salary bound is.
Incidentally, related to that, Stanford had a thing (at least then, perhaps now) where they had a four day work week and the last day you were allowed to consult to augment your salary. Someone I talked to there claimed to me that often people could double their salary in that one extra day on the commercial world by leveraging the prestige of being a Stanford employee in getting the consulting work. Whether that's true or not again will vary with university and circumstance, but certainly knowing whether outside work is encouraged or discouraged is worth knowing up front, since clearly it can make a serious dent in your pay.
Knowing, too, what your publication rights are is something you should know at any job, university or not, in case research you're doing wants to be written up in a book, not just a lab paper.
But back to the University and Politics, the other thing is that if you're not a PhD, then you probably won't get to be Principal Investigator on grant proposals, and that means you'll be constantly in the shadow of someone else no matter how good the work you do is. There may be exceptions to this, but it's worth assuming this is true unless strong promises are made to the contrary. Usually there's the subtle cue that the position is titled "Scientist" and not either "Engineer" or "Associate" that says "we actually respect you rather than merely tolerating you because you can do cool things we need".
As to salary, the rule I learned is to expect half of an industry salary for a very prestigious University, but to expect it to inch up to larger amounts as the University is less well-known and/or more focused on teaching than research. That is, if you work for Harvard or MIT you're expected to sacrifice half of your salary to just having the coolness of the name, but if you work for Foobar City University, they know you aren't there because of the prestige so they'd better come much closer to industry wages even though you're still expected to cut them a break. And yet, on top of this, if you don't have that all-important PhD, expect them to treat you less well even after you've made this financial sacrifice.
Note: In fact, MIT treated me quite well as a staff employee. This note might sound like I'm dissing them for a bad experience, which is not so one either account--neither was my experience bad nor am I dissing them. But I am saying that I believe there are limitations to how good it can get in a place like that. Much of the information I've gleaned in here is info I've picked up along the way later in my career from here and there, and I'm just using these names as examples and offering this info in the strongest possible terms not to get back at anyone but on the theory of "better safe than sorry".
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Expect the most beauracratic administration you'll ever see. With University systems, the administration ppl are the ones who stay forever and gain more power/control everytime a faculty person leaves and they fill the power void. And the new person to fill the faculty position just accepts that that's the way things work.
Likely you'll have good job security, but the pay will suck.
If you are competent and they find you indespensible, then tell them you are doing contract work for other companies and that you need to move to a contract position.
The contractors generally don't have to follow the crappy pay-scale of other positions. And if you settle for a pre-defined position, then it will have to fit in a heirarchy that the admins will make certain that you are as low on the rung as possible. Be a contractor, and they will think they are blessed to have you spending time there.
Trust me, I was a full-timer getting paid crap and no voice. They made a royal stink when I wanted a minor promotion. Now I contract w/ University and make the same amount but work 1/4 the hours, and they feel lucky for having me. lol, cause i'm basically doing the same job.
Knowing many people who still work at the higher ed levels (doing programming and tech suppot), its like a regular job. 9-5. In fact, I'm thinking about getting back into the uni game after going corporate . Much more relaxing. Though, none of the people I know participate in the "parties" or "drunk sorority chicks" (thats assault brotha). Easygoing private schools or big public schools are a nice area, plenty to do, but easy going. At least thats been my expirence. Hey, try it out, the time is around now for unis to be hiring.
Um, well, maybe for you. It depends what level of staff you are - I'm in the same category as the Profs, so I tend to work 9-10 hours a day (or else work 8 hours and come in weekends) and some weekends are conferences.
But I agree about the stress - this is the most fun job I've had since the military. The pay's not quite as high, but the benefits are so cool as to blow your mind - in a typical week I get to go to free seminars about cutting edge stuff you won't see for months out in the commercial side, have free tuition towards my doctorate (except the last year, but hey), and the 40 cents a trip university bus pass rocks my world!
Plus all the intelligent women one could dream of! From around the world! Life is sweet!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I work at one of the largest Universities in the country.
Here is a short list:
PROS
CONS
--
"You've only got one finger left,
and it's pointing at the door."
During my 8 years with a University during and after college, I learned that schools in my area (Southwestern TN) generally pay about 80% of what you would make in the real world. They claim that they make it up in benefits. While the benifits are miles better than anything I've had somewhere else, I'd rather have more money in my pocket (which is why I'm now working for a bank.)
Due to the politics at the University I worked at, performance-based raises did not exist. We got something like 1.5% every two years, and the raise was given across the board. The school was always broke, and we went several years with no raise at all.
A running gag around campus departments is that if you want to make more money at a University, then you should quit and reapply for your own job. They actually have to pay more money to get new people in than to retain the current ones...
I worked at a large university for a short time about 5 years ago. It was the worst experience of my life. I too had returned to take classes and a job became available. It should have been a great job. The hours were awesome, the pay was ok and school was free. Unfortunately my boss was a complete psycho. I really wanted to work but she didn't want me touching anything! One day she stood in my office door and stamped her foot while yelling about something I did that she didn't like. I finally gave up; I set books (mainframe programming) up on my desk as props and did my homework. When you interview, listen carefully and watch the people you will be working with. Sometimes years of being opressed by the social order in that type of environment drives people nuts....
2: If you're a conservative, keep it to yourself ALWAYS! If you're a liberal (somewhere to the left of Howard Dean) then it's okay to speak carefully and discreetly -- and after everyone else has had their say first.
3: You are in the absolute bastion of Political Correctness. A lot of it will be abysmally stupid. Don't ever point that out to ANYONE! Just nod silently and move along. There's nothing you can do about it anyway.
4: You are in the breeding ground for sexually harassed females in training. Be as respectful to any female -- especially any unattractive female -- as you are to the cop who just pulled you over for doing 50mph in the school zone just as the last points were about to drop off your license.
5: Diversity good! Affirmative Action good! Repeat this loud and often. And never forget that "Diversity" doesn't really mean true diversity. It means their one and only single definition of diversity.
6: Try not to have a job that anyone in the university with power will want to take away from you and give to their best friend/drinking buddy/lazy son who needs a job.
7: If someone tells you that you should be part of the Union, just say yes and hand over your money.
8: Understand that your lower pay should be offset by better medical coverage, retirement (if you stay that long) benefits, and low cost or free educational benefits (which you should take maximum advantage of).
9: If there's a probation period, be ESPECIALLY CAREFUL until you've passed it.
That should get you through the first week.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you are given a budget, spend all of it, if you spend less, your next year's budget will be based off what you actualy used, not what you were alloted. If you manage to do things more inexpensivly that you had thought, upgrade your plan to use it all. You don't get to keep money left over at the end of the year, and any surplus will be deducted from your budget for the next year.
For example, you have a $5,000 budget based on the cost of a server you need to perchase. Between the time you sent in the request (for $10,000 for redundant servers) and the time it came throug, the cost of the server fell to $4,300. If you buy only that server, saving $700 from your estimate, the next time you send in a request for a $5,000 peice of equiptment, you will only get $4,300. If you upgrade a few options and spend $5,000 you will get the full amount next time you make a request.
Counterintuitive to say the least.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
1. Respect the heirarchy. This is critical.
2. There's free stuff everywhere when labs and depts move - and then there's surplus for sale too.
3. Investigate the benefits ASAP - I got matching retirement pay the second I wanted it and signed up on week one - others waited two years for some reason.
4. Be friendly to everyone.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Because without a doubt you will quickly become someone else's fallguy.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Unfortunately, after workign for years in a University IT department, I've discovered that the old motto, "Those who can't, teach", can also be revised to "Those who can't, work in the public sector". In my experience, the least competent, most lazy, and most politically motivated people work in ALL branches of government. Why? Simple. You can get fired much more easily in the private sector than from a government job (where *every* firing is a case of some kind of discrimination). Thus, the University system (or any other government sector) is often where the least competent filter down to. I wish it wasn't true, living in a beautiful university town and all...
When I worked at IEG (ClubLove.com) we did a shoot in the server room. A very nervous systems admin hovered over the entire thing, and insisted the photog assistants clean everything up with some carbon-tet.
you look at the money, to look at the entire package. Insurance, retirement, etc...
Right now, retirement and insurance sucks in the private sector. Big time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The pace of work is so much slower than at a typical job. Makes life a whole lot easier when you're already busting your ass over your studies and class projects.
In general expect less pay, above average benefits, loads of politics, and people coasting through the last few years till retirement. Always over estimate time requirements - unlike in the real world they won't kill a project because it takes forever, they just whine a lot.
8 years of getting paid for hanging out on Slas^h^h^h^hcampus and counting...
That sounds like a Scott Adams pesudonym if I ever read one.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The problem is that the Social Security Administration will dock you for the time you have worked for the state.
If you work for a state-supported university or grade-, middle- or high- school be certain that you understand how pension is paid and whether or not Social Security benefits are affected. I know of several people who lost benefits because they were unaware of this loophole.
Why are you asking a bunch of 17 years that have never held a job in their lives these questions?
Consult current, and if possible previous employees, at the university. I'm also not referring only to people in the same or similar departments. Go talk to a ground crew guy, a student aid who might have some insight into how things work around there, etc.
Go to the source instead of getting 100 replies on here that only tell you to build a beowulf cluster using old servers the engineering department dumped in a closet 5 years earlier.
bad: -less money -little chance for overtime -have to deal with academic types that can sometimes be on the elitist side -have to deal with students who, depending on what kind of school you are working at (private vs. public) could be kind of snotty too. -their IT systems can be cool but retarded in some aspects good: -tenure may be extended to professional (ie not academic) types as well...aka the epitome of job security. -even if you are remotely competent you probably won't get axed. -considerably more relaxed work environment -less need to work extra hours -free tuition? -usually better benefits i've heard that academia and state jobs are a good place to work towards the end of your career when stability and benefits play a greater role with respect to salary then in earlier years. but i wouldn't really know, i'm no where near there ;)
It's going to be a lot like that, probably worse in some ways.
The bad:
- Less pay
- Fewer resources
- Lower overall talent level
- Impossible to fire deadwood coworkers
- Work farmed out to less experienced, often unreliable students
- Unrealistic and/or disorganized projects
The good:- You can go home at 5
- Job security
- Flexiblity
- No one knows and/or cares if you aren't doing your job
- No one loses their stock options if the project fails
Now, I know these aren't universal, but I see them enough in the government/education sector to call them trends.Overall, though, it's not such a bad gig for student. The trick is going to be to shed a lot of your consultant traits. You are not going to be very empowered, and going above and beyond isn't going to get you any further than a journeyman's effort. I am not saying you should slack off, but you aren't being paid like a consultant, so your effort level should be commensurate. You are there to get an education, and you are basically flipping burgers help make it happen.
Did you ever happen to think that this person may be a woman and COMPLETELY UNINTERESTED in the prospect of "hot women" as you (and several other insensitive clods) so eloquently put it?
:p
Oh, who the hell am I kidding, this is slashdot. Of course you didn't.
1. Every PHD that you encounter will "know" more than you about programming, even if their PHD is in literature.
2. The bureaucreacy, the horror.
My experience was as follows. Work month 1. At the end of month 1 get someone who doesn't know you to sign a paper certifying that he saw you working. Deliver the papers yourself (DON'T TRUST THE INTER NAL MAIL AND CARRIER SYSTEM OR YOU WILL MISS THE DEADLINE). Get paid at the end of month 2. Repeat procedure.
3. Let them know, on a daily basis, that even if you are a student and a 40 year old you are not a punk who is lucky enough to receive their charity (The job you are doing)
Good Luck,
Adolfo
university. Other than the pay, you really couldn't ask for a better place to work according to her. I'd have to agree based on what I've seen. Very liberal benefits policies that include her "life parter" (me) being able to get full health/dental/eyewear coverage if I need it. I can also go to school for free. She's currently working on her Masters for free.
I hope she stays there, but it would be nice to see her getting paid better for what she brings to the table. It's going to take her another 3+ (she's been there for 2 already) years of 5% raises (if she can contingue to get them at that rate) to get back to the salary she was at before taking the job.
I swapped income with free tuition and a stiped.. overall, the compensation was pretty low, when compared to a professional job. Hey.. it's a state school, they don't have a lot of money to give!
If you get to give a quote, quote what you're currently making and see if they bite.. if anything, shoot high, because if you miss, hopefully it'll still be higher than if you shot low..
If you're concerned about how much you'd be paid because you're afraid you won't be able to maintain the lifestyle you're used to, it might not be a good idea. You've been working in business too long, and the college lifestyle may not actually appeal to you. But if you're concerned because you've willingly started comparison-pricing ramen and generic mac-and-cheese, then you might actually have the personal fiscal flexibility to make it go... because it shows that money's just a means to you, not an end in itself.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I Am Doctorate!
Depending on exactly what position you have, you'll get this to varying degrees <rimshot>, but you will get it.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
In general a university environment is a tradeoff of money for security: salaries are less than in the private sector, but unless you are working on a "soft-money" (externally funded) project, the likelihood of major layoffs, downsizing and mergers is nearly zero. However, the salary structure is compressed by private sector standards -- the ratio of the highest to lowest pay may well be less than 2 -- and there are no stock options (closest thing would be to get football or basketball tickets to scalp, but even that perk is rare now). In recent years many institutions in the U.S. have eliminated things like free or reduced tuition due to tax implications.
So, the key thing to check is where is the money for the position coming from? Is it from the central budget (which is relatively stable) or from an external grant? The latter typically only last a couple of years: if you are in a lab run by an experienced senior investigator, he or she may keep things going for years through multiple grants, but if the well runs dry (or, more commonly, that researcher gets hired elsewhere), the project disappears once the grant runs out. You would typically have a month or two (quite possibly a lot more) warning on this, but the timing is unpredictable.
Same problem on equipment: institutional budgets are generally limited and set on an annual basis with very little flexibility after they are set, and project budgets are more or less fixed at the beginning. Projects that are equipment-intensive -- e.g. electrical engineering -- may have access to a lot of goodies, but in other cases you may be stuck well behind the state of the art.
The other thing you may (or may not) find odd is the constant turnover -- undergraduates stay around two or three years after they get involved with a project, competent graduate students and post-docs just a bit longer. Many professional staff stay around a much longer time (way too long in some instances -- there's a downside to never having lay-offs) -- but you'll probably spend a lot more time training people only to see them graduate.
Every university I've been involved with has a core of really competent IT people who hang around because they like the environment or have family connections in the area. That core is surrounded by a diffuse halo of incompetents -- some in managerial positions -- who hang around because they can't or won't be fired. But I doubt this is a whole lot different than any other organization.
"All successful systems accumulate parasites" -- Hal Hixon
From my experience in both academia and business, software creation works best when a team effort is applied. Academia is inherantly 'memememe' - there are far too many individual egos and interests to foster the kind of group ethic that is needed for most projects to flourish. I'm glad I'm out of it.
As somebody who actually work for a university, here is my take.
First, remember one important fact: the university exists for education. While I have no idea what kind of position you are really taking, if that is a support department job for teaching/research, remember your job exist so that you can offer the service for researchers/faculties/students so that their educational (or research) experience is more enhanced.
While this seems a logical simple idea, many non-academic departments have no idea on this at my institution (and many other ones). Often, purchasing department have all the sorts of crazy rules that we must comply, and ordering sometimes takes as long as 6 months here. Worse, sometimes, the order we made somehow gets lost in the system that we have to re-do the order (2-3 months after we originally make the order). Those people prevent us from doing our research and teaching sometimes. Coming from an academic department stand point, that is completely screwed up.
Second, don't expect much in pay. When we were interviewing candidates a few months ago for one of our staff position, the top candidate (and he was really good) didn't take the job in the end, as the pay isn't good.
Third, for the most part, staff jobs at a university could be very flexible. Many people work less than 40 hours/week (and getting paid for 40 hours). I swear our secretary works only 25-30 hours/week (she comes in often late, leaves early, takes several breaks throughout the day, takes 1.5 hour lunch at least, etc). Of course, some of us work very long hours, too (I work 60-80 hours/week at work, plus many hours at home). However, in my case, it's not like I have a set hours I need to be in my office and around. I just work that much willingly. Also, during the summer months, some days, I would go home as early as 2 PM.
Fourth, as far as the job goes, it could be very flexible. My job consists of many different things: I am a chemist, network administrator, engineer, programmer, mentor (to students), consultants (to my colleagues), researcher, graphic artist all at in one day. I have learned how to do a lot of things that I doubt if I would have never been able to outside. Of course, I suppose this could change a lot depending upon what exactly is your position is (It appears that in non-academic departments, there are less job flexibility).
Fifth, in many cases, you can dress very casually in academic jobs. I don't think I ever had to wear a tie entire day at my work (although I keep a set of clothes including a tie in my office just in case when I have to). During the summer months, I often go work in shorts and sandals, and nobody question me on that. During the school year, I normally show up work wearing jeans. I don't even own a suit any more (although I have a few jackets).
Sixth, be prepared for some (incredibly) imcompetent and lazy people. I don't mean students. I mean other staff/faculty members. It's relatively hard to get fired in a university (in many places). We have a guy in the accounting who just did not bother to process any payments to the venders for 3 months last year. This guy's primary (and only) responsibility in his job is to pay the bills to the venders, but he did none of that for 3 months last year. This actually screwed up our budget a big time last year (not surprisingly). Well, this guy still has his job in the accounting office, believe or not.
Would I ever give up my job for anything else? I don't think so. I love my job. I worked for a company for a while, and that sucked. My current job is a dream as far as what I concern. Politics could get bad in some places sometimes, but often I can get away with steering clear away from that. If you feel a need for the freedom in your work, academic job could be the greatest thing in the world.
When I was at University the chicks were hot, mature babes. Now, as a longterm University employee, the chicks look like my daughter. I want to make sure they are wrapped up warm instead of wanting to get their clothes OFF. :-(
I've worked for a couple of Universities for 5 years or so. The first thing is, like the private sector, no two are the same. Imagine asking the same thing about companies on the stock market, a person from Walmart would probably give very different advice from someone at Google.
The second thing is: year on year Universities are becoming more like big business (for good and bad). My first job was being the 'IT guy' in a department which required quite a lot of IT. I was basically left to myself, trusted to come and go as I please, set my own agenda, make the most high level of decissions involving hundreds of thounsands of pounds and in the same day replace mice. No one checked up on me, but then I loved it so much, no one needed to, I loved the job due to it's freedom.
Now (ok different uni), we have very high levels of accountabilty, I have to report on each 'unit' of my job to senior staff of the department so they can see what is happening. They want to see what I'm doing (which is hard when part of the job is sys admin to SOlaris and PCs, testing backups and patching doesn't produce anything, it just keeps the ship afloat.
Third, and this may differ in the US where many Uni's are private, the level of accountabilty is huge, we have to justify everything to the tax payer. This sounds good when you are a tax payer, but often means that cost of allocating costs is very high. "how much staff time was spent learning the new software?" the public think this should be an easy thing to answer, of course if the software is used across campus you will have little idea how much time different departments (and sub units of departments) have spent on staff training, but you are expected to know, so much time is spent keeping track of such things.
Which leads me to the next point, Universities *can* be very segmented, with departments not talking to each other, and you have to play the game. Just because the guys in the Computer Science academic department have the solution does not mean you in - say - the computing service can go and use it. It's stupid and a waste, but be careful before you fight it.
But I come back to my main point all departments in all Universities will be different. Some will be fair, some will be laid back and generous, some will try and rip you off, some will be professional and have clear guidelines as to whats expected, some will not know how to manage a project. If it is the latter, don't come on too strong with the professional way of laying out guidelines and spec, some (especially some academics) are cynicall of the private sector and will preume 'you don't get it', in the same way as the guy down the local store will lecture the guy who shops at walmart because he presumes he 'doesn't get why walmart is bad'. You need to be clear of what is expected of you, but be smart enough so that they think you are like them.
Chris
You will forget this sig before you next see it
If you're coming from a company environment, you may find yourself in for a bit of a shock (your university may vary).
The bureaucrats are political parasites. The faculty are egomaniacs. You are their meat puppet and when something goes wrong, and it will, when there is any blame to be shared you are the paper-towel boy to soak it up.
You can be brilliant, and carve yourself a nitch in a rare environment, or get bitter. You'll see lots of bitter employees and they'll want you to join the club. They're your peers, and if you're brilliant you're going to make them look bad. Its a micky-mouse club with rat teeth and knives in the dark, depending on your coworkers.
If it were a business, it would be dead. Nothing in any other environment could survive that much incompetence, miss that many deadlines, or be so far over budget that you could smile at the end and call it a success. Some days you're not going to have high expectations, your expectations are going to be so low that you're going to trip over it dragging your feet.
Set against that post-apocolyptic world, there are a few rebel groups trying to make a difference. For computers, that will probably be CSCI, hard sciences (math, chem) or business. They probably won't have much of a budget, but they're probably doing something cool & trendy and it is greasing the wheels.
Find that wave and surf it.
and I knew someone who worked in a similar field at a neighboring university. I can say it absolutely depends on the university. If you're getting the idea that they don't have their shit together, avoid them like the plague. This is an indication that you'll never get what you need to do things the right way. Or even the half-assed way. The red tape at large, public universities makes most other government organizations look streamlined and efficient. At most universities, perks like health care and pension are being cut to save money, so you don't even have the benefits like you used to. Trust that feeling in your gut that says you're going to get screwed, because you will.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
One problem that I had working at the university was that the faculty's budgets came from various sources with strings attaches, creating a nightmare for IT projects because each professor spent directly on their IT needs, and never on the overall IT "framework" -- worse, since each paid for the service "directly", they expected the service to be tailored to them.
Imagine having 10 different networks, each with its own server and a different way of running backups, and having no way to share resources because they won't let you!
Argh.
I left after a year.
Myself, another sysadmin, and some lab supervisors installed SETI@home on every machine on campus, and ran them each night. We were number one for a while.
Then one of the most arrogant and despised academic staff members on the planet (then a PhD student) demanded that it stop because he needed the network for a distributed computing project he was working on.
So the administration told us to remove the SETI client and turn the campus network over to the academic each night.
The academic then reinstalled SETI@home and shot to number one. The difference between himself and us was that he used his SETI user info to *advertize* the distributed computing Linux-cluster based system he had created.
At least SETI@home ordered him to remove the advertizing message eventually. But he's still a faggot motherfucker.
But here are a few things I've picked up:
- "Academic Freedom". Learn that term right away, because you will be hearing it a lot. Basically, if a professor wants to surf for goat-on-midget-on-chocolate ice cream pr0n, he thinks he can do it, because he has Academic Freedom. Doesn't matter if he's infecting the whole campus with viruses, he has Academic Freedom. If you're in a position of authority in the IS department, you need to do everything possible to become best friends with as many Deans as possible, because fights with professors/doctors/lawyers/whatever profession your university relies on become really nasty really fast.
- "My tuition pays your salary you know". Very quickly you will know what a cop feels like everytime he hears "My taxes pay your salary you know". Students on the whole are about the biggest bunch of arrogant pricks you will ever meet in your life. They know everything, you know nothing, how dare you tell me I can't host 20 gig worth of MP3's for the entire world. Luckily faculty and high-muckity-administration are much less forgiving when students start whining, but there will be a few that will take the students side over yours.
- "IT isn't meeting our needs". You've never seen so many mini Napoleons as you will in academia. Everyone wants their kingdom, and they're constantly trying to expand at the expense of other kingdoms. If you don't rule with an iron fist, you will have people setting up their own IT departments, setting up their own routers/switches, building their own servers and hiding them in closets, the whole nine yards.
- "Sure you can buy that, but did you check to see if it is on contract?" Applies to state schools mostly I would guess, but frustrating beyond words. If I want to buy a $49 piece of software from Best Buy, I can't do it, because we have a vendor on contract who will go to Best Buy, pay $49 for the software, then sell it back to us for $129. If I want to purchase some backup tapes from CDW, I can't do it, because backup tapes are offered in the catalog of the on contract office supply company, who doesn't have any of the correct DLT's in stock but will be able to order them in about two months. Purchasing are some of the worst kingdom-hoarding Napoleons in a state system, and incurring their wrath will not sit well with anyone in your department, including your boss and administrative assistants. Grin and bear it.
Having worked in a university environment for almost 4 years now, one thing that never fails to frustrate is the bureaucracy. If you're part of an IT department like I am, the best thing to do in most situations is work with upper management as best you can so that they will leave you alone, and let you do your job. There's nothing worse than having your boss asks you to do something computer related, when he/she knows just enough to be dangerous, but still doesn't have a clue about the realities of the IT world, and you somehow have to tell him or her, "No." Anyways, as many of the posts above have said, it's a really nice environment to work in with pretty kick ass benefits and scheduling. And if you're in a good department, there's never dull moment, as people's needs are so diverse, that they constantly challenge you to learn more, and find creative solutions to problems as they arise. I hope you enjoy yourself!
It makes absolutely no difference what you write up as a proposal. It will be judged solely on sentence structure, composition and spelling. After contracting for 10 weeks to do a job my proposal was finally accepted in week 9. Thankfully I had started writing at week 1 while I was putting the proposal together.
Good luck, but don't expect them to have a clue as to what you are proposing...
"Straddling the sword of technology..."
because real staff at universities carpool, bike, walk, or bus. you probably get really cheap rates for bus passes too - mine are 40 cents a trip, which is about a fourth the going rate.
if you're driving to work, you're doing something wrong.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I would like to second just about everything said by the parent poster, and add some amplification. At large public universities whose faculty are unionized, without a PhD you are automatically a second-class citizen. My eldest brother was the sysadmin of a large well-funded research group, and without a PhD, he was restricted to a salary that was lowest than the lowest-paid faculty member. That was a result of the contract that the faculty had as union members --- an enforced pecking-order based on degree and years of service.
Salary is not the only way you would be a second-class citizen at the university, but it is a very obvious way.
1)The shorter the woman, the bigger the chip on her shoulder and the more she'll hate you if you're a generic white male. If said woman has a 'regular boys' haircut, her chip weighs 20,000 tons. 2)Unless you are an Eskimo black Jewish lesbian, your career path is limited (unless you're in a union, then you pretty much get free reign). 3)Don't work too hard because nobody else does! 4)Take EVERY sick day that you can, it's the way things are done. 5)Adopting orphans from another country to be cared for by you and your same-sex partner gets you BIG points. 6)No matter the cost of tuition, the billions given by alums nor the massive taxbreaks and handouts from the gubmint, THE UNIVERSITY IS BROKE! Remember these things and you'll go far...perhaps even across the river!
I learned the hard way from Lockheed Martin to get things in writing. I was promised tuition paid up front, time off for class, and a large choice of area schools (MIT, etc.). After a year of working there I finally qualified for these benefits only to find out I had pay tuition out of pocket and get reimbursed at the end of the semester, 0 time for class, and a choice of two schools (Lowell and Worcester) the better one being abut an hour drive from work. I later filed a confidential ethics complaint that was leaked within hours to my boss, so I complained about that to HR, which made me a trouble maker and led to me being let go.
I learned from another company to ask about IP/Invention rules. After moving across country for a job I was informed I had to sign a document that states any ideas I have, work related at not, wether I had them at work or not, belong to General Dynamics and even 6 months after I quit they own all my thoughts.
CHEAP
... if you don't know someone with some clout that can call their payables people every month and make sufficient noise to get a check cut ... forget it. They'll drag you out Net 180 if you're lucky.
... boy. I know that they have to make every penny count (because the university sucks up most of their grant money in "overhead") but hell, I had bills to pay too. I had a lot of fun in those days, got to work on some cutting-edge stuff, and met a lot of really great people, but I'll never do it again. Especially don't do it if you have a mortgage and a car payment due every month.
I worked for a couple of major universities early on in my career (1980 or thereabouts) and, honestly, I had a ridiculous time trying to get paid for my efforts. I worked as a contract engineer for many years after that (industrial stuff, mostly) but never had any real problems with AR. But universities
Now, to be fair, I suppose that if you're working for the university itself you might be okay, depends upon the particular organization. But if you're working for a grant-based research facility like I was
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I recently returned to school to work on a PhD after working in industry for seven years. Over the last two years, I've been involved in a number of software engineering projects with scientists and just recently helped hire a software engineer to "replace" me.
Here are some things I've learned:
1) If you're going for a degree, don't mix research and software engineering projects. You'll find yourself spending too much time as a software engineer and not enough developing your research skills. It's ok to have both types of projects, even as part of your official research, but keep the software projects separate from the pure research ones.
2) The only two deadlines that matter are grant deadlines and class deadlines. This is in contrast to working in industry, where there are often many deadlines with many people relying on you to meet them. Research and even academic software development works at a different pace. For the first year, I worked at an industry pace and nearly burned myself out. Then I realized that no one else was working at that pace and I could actually take my time and do things 'right'. This has greatly improved the quality of software I write and helped me hone my research skills by allowing myself the time to explore the problem completely.
3) Everyone is pretty much equal when it comes to intelligence. An earlier poster noted that post docs and other PhDs tend to be arrogant. This is true, but as far as I can tell it's really just a defense mechanism. They're often as itimidated by you (coming from industry) as you are of them. Ultimately, while I've found people's knowledge can vary widely, most everyone you'll work with has the same level of intelligence. And, once you get past the facades, academics are a lot of fun to work with. (and though they'll rarely admit it, they enjoy learning from people with industry experience)
4) The benefits are nice. At my school, the support employees earn competitive salaries ($50k/yr for junior programmers), get 6 weeks of vacation and good health coverage. Couple this with relaxed work schedules and it makes for a nice job.
5) You can't be a full time employee and student at the same time. For legal and practical reasons, pick one or the other and focus full time on it. You'll be saner in the long run. Everyone I know who consults on the side is overwhelmed with work and can't really enjoy the extra money they make. Of course, if you have a family to support, you may have to make some sacrifices (and I'm not talking about the kids).
Anyway, those are some observations. Good luck.
-rockmuelle
I work as an undergrad on a co-op for a major office in my university. I do a ton of research work and programming and work in a very competetive, research driven environment.
:]
The pay isn't the best (I had received offers for more money), but the people I work with and the opportunities I've received are outstanding.
Expect to work closely with a professor, a post-doctorate, grad students, undergrads, and all sorts of folks... and forge good relationships with all of them. that reference from the professor, or the good word from the post-doc when he starts working for IBM (or another random large company) can go a long way.
Look into cheaper (or even free) tuition. I know that the guy next to me gets free tuition in exchange for his work week, so he stocks up on night classes, and has gotten his masters and is working on a PhD.
The work environment is going to be very casual -- as long as you get the job done. I am assigned 40 hours per week (on my word -- no timecard), and I can work whatever hours i want. I've worked nights, weekends, whatever, to fit my schedule best. Eventually I settled into a 7-3 shift (I like mornings) and it was embraced by all my coworkers, who took it to mean that I was very hard working
Make good friends with the office accountant (or secretary, if there is none). Get her/him gifts and engage in conversations. Basically make them a buddy, because you need to make sure your paychecks come through, as well as your reimbursements and travel costs.
My 6 month co-op term is up, but I'm going to be staying on and working for another project. The office got a new project, and was interviewing undergrads for it. They didn't like any of the candidates, so they grabbed me and interviewed me, and asked how I'd like to work for them some more. I accepted and now have another term of work with them, doing some really amazing research work. In fact, we're competing for a very large government check, and if they choose our design and buy our IP, I reap a dividend check, as an undergrad (and my chunk will be large enough to pay my tuition and buy me a house afterwards). So I've got some pretty good inspiration.
To sum it up:
1) make friends with everyone
2) follow up on paperwork, especially with the accountant
3) don't bs anyone -> there are people in the office who know much more than you and, most likely, can call out your BS by pointing to a white paper that says the exact opposite of what youre saying
4) deadlines are going to come. ask for help from your coworkers if you need it. finish early.
5) find a way to get cheap/free tuition. school is expensive. take nightclasses and cheat the system.
hope that helps
-mike
Know that institutions of higher education are full of excentric (but sometimes brilliant) people, and it's a perfect breeding ground for politics. I'm not saying that commercial businesses are void of politics (they are obviously not) but universities are on a different (higher) level of politics. And it's a world full of arbitrary decisions, not always based on the rules we might be used to from other arenas. Basing decisions on ROI, feasibility and other things that might make perfect sense elsewhere often don't get used in the academic world. Be aware of this and you will do much better.
A mixed blessing. Low stress. Great benefits. Pay is lower than private industry.
Remember this ironical bit of wisdom: the faster you try to push things through the bureaucracy, the harder it pushes back to slow things down.
Finally, if you live in a warmer state, you'll love summer time on campus. Lot's of great scenery. I am referring to the foliage of course.
I just started working at a university at their Web department, I knew a couple people working there so I got in pretty easily. We basically just get work from all the departments of the school and integrate them into our tool that a couple of my friends started which lets the heads of those departments or whoever they feel is necessary to update alot of the content and stuff on the page without messing with databases or coding. I started May 20th and this coming wednesday I am now getting my first paycheck. I don't know why it took so long, neither does anyone else its just the University is very slow at getting people into the system. I just got my University ID this week too, I guess the people in the Admissions or whatever are just very very lazy. I enjoy it, its a very relax enviroment as long as you get your stuff done, though this is my first real programming job it has been enoyable so far.
-Trivial
Politics are the 1st rule. Second rule of working at the University would be not so much of a rule, but more of a problem.....users have no frickin idea what they want. EVERYTHING takes longer then it should take and the main problem the administration refuses to accept is hat you can't please everyone. I mean where I work (a Large Community College) are main students are obviously local yet our programmers had to make sure that people from other countries with weird addresses worked and everything was scrutinized to make sure that ALL students would understand every communication.
Gorkman
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?"
Yes, suggestion 1: get better at English. You should've said "wish-i-had-known". That error really bugs me, so forgive me if I'm a little pedantic.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I have worked at a major public university for about 5 years now and what have I learned? 1. If you're working for a public institution, pay raises are far and few in between, especially these days. They're like rumors that are about 0.1% truth. 2. Unlike a private firm of any size, a university's primary goal is academics. As such, employees -- staff and faculty -- have lots of freedom to do things as they see fit (as long as its in accordance to the institution's objectives) and most bosses are open and encourage employees to further their education (besides the fact that most places will pay for it). 3. Pay systems differ depending where you are. I get paid once a month on the first. Its a definite shock especially when you're used to biweekly infusions. I've gotten good at budgetting because of that. 4. Unlike private companies, public institutions don't run on efficiency. Hell, I don't think efficiency is in the top 5 operational priorities. As such, monetary matters can drag on. I know, it takes way too much paperwork to get anything reimbursed. If I were you, don't work for free unless its for some course project or for some research group. 5. Along the lines of academic freedom, projects really aren't planned out when they're assigned to you. Rather, most people care about the destination, not the journey. The method in getting there is up to you. Lots of freedom for you to tinker and try different routes out. I do it all the time for various projects. 6. Make sure to take advantage of the benefits that the university gives you. If you compare the health, vision, dental, and all the other insurances that the university gives versus private companies, you're almost getting everything for free. 7. Universities are much more flexible in terms of work hours and how you work. Granted, this does depend upon your boss but most are quite flexible. I know people that do 4 10 hour days so that they can do 3 day weekends and other more odd schedules. Just make sure you're getting paid and enjoy the ride. The level of stress I have from my job is several degrees lower than anything I had before.
I.) You will be poorly compensated with regard to similar salaries offered in industry.
... ... ...
II.) You will be asked to help spend an absurd amount of departmental/university money on all sorts of things: poorly-engineered solutions, glitzy glamour tech toys, and other moneypits that your stupid PHB/faculty want to see off the ground even if there is no reason for such. This will include but not be limited to the following: wikis, group blogs, thin clients, clusters, blades, network appliances, VOIP, RFID, SSI, Exchange, Exchange, Exchange.
III.) Students will be bad users; faculty will be worse.
IV.) You will see that it takes upwards of three to twelve times to get any technical done on a state university campus.
V.) You will see that management outnumbers the workers. You will see that as time progresses, this class gap grows and grows.
VI.) You will be asked to spend more time "planning to plan" than implementing anything.
VII.) You will see that there is no "bottom line". The name of the game will be "spend it before they take it from us". Every project budget you see will be broken in an order to justify being allocated a larger piece of the money pie for the next technical project.
VIII.) You will see that the students really are getting less than they bargained for. The amount you see them pay in any variety of fees will disgust you at the yield they reap from the fees spent so carelessly by your PHB.
IX.) You will get a state-issued Blackberry, and you will be expected to be available 24/7/365 to remedy any issues. You will realize that this act is just an effort to glamorize your position to other organizations (more importantly, other PHBs) on campus and that the tiny facet of campus technology you are responsible for is not entirely mission critical enough to warrant such a handcuffing device.
X.) You will not win. You will find out more on this after your 94238234th meeting.
You can choose to
a.) be a conventional state employee. In doing so, you will be able to keep your poorly-paying job, but you will be able to shirk a lot of responsibility and workloads. You will be able to do virtually anything you little heart desires, and you will continue to hold down your job until you are six feet under. You will not be held accountable, but you will enjoy it. More than 98% of state university employees become this in under 18 months. There is also the option of
b.) working to defy the stereotype of the lazy, worthless university employee. You can take on tasks and projects other co-workers have shirked. You can think that you will dazzle your PHB/faculty/chairman/dean/president with your sk1llz, but
c.) you will realize that you will not be compensated for your work efforts. In a short amount of time, you will realize that there is zero motivation to operate as any other type of employee other than the aforementioned point "A" employee. At this point, the circle will be complete and you will just be one cog of many in a huge machine responsible for perpetuating a lot of injustice.
My 2 cents -> I just left the uni world for private after 5 years, it was the best thing I ever did.
Bottom line? Seek work elsewhere.
"The chief enemy of creativity is 'good taste'" -Pablo Picasso
First, and most importantly, the hardest thing to get used to is that in a university environment the amount of experience you have means *nothing*. I mean *nothing*. If two people are going for a job in a group, and one guy has a PHD and the other guy doesn't, it ALWAYS goes to the guy with the PHD. *ALWAYS*. The guy could be out in the real world of one year, be in a completely different field (like history....seriously), but if he has a PHD, that's it. Doesn't even matter if they know what they're doing. That PHD is the only thing they pay attention to.
Second, be prepared to deal with the biggest egos you've ever seen. You might think things were bad in corporate, but you won't believe what happens in universities. Some of these people are real bastards; just steer clear... if you end up working for one, just switch departments when you can. The bastards just won't change. The inter-department politics between professors is something to behold.
Be prepared for people that take credit for things when they go right, but deny all responsibility when they go wrong. I know a few of 'em that would never ever admit they made a mistake or made a bad decision.
Be prepared for a boss taking all the credit for projects during demos and things like that, and who won't even acknowledge that you did the work... this happens less often, but does still happen. When others refer to the project it's usually "XYZ's project" where XYZ is the boss, not you.
If you ever work on an academic paper, be prepared that your boss will likely throw their own name on it, even if they haven't written a word. This seems to be a universal practice for some reason.
Some other things:
Salaries vary WIDELY. When I worked for a university, I was very well paid (at least I thought so). Other people weren't. A lot of this depends on who you're working for; I've worked for people that give good raises, and I've worked for people that don't.
Vacation time is pretty good. Usually between 4 and 6 weeks; that's not counting holidays, or sick time.
You'll have to pay for parking. So does everyone else. It sucks, but you'll have to do it.
If you work for a academic department (as opposed to an institute), you may get a nice office, you might not. You're always the low guy on the totem pole in academic departments, so if a new faculty member shows up, and they need office space, you might lose your office and get a worse one, or you might have to share with someone.
No matter what they say the work is going to be when they interview you, be prepared that things won't be exactly as they stated. It's usually much different.
Take advantage of the eateries around campus; they're usually pretty good.
Take advantage of university discounts on computers and software. Some universities have site licenses that include your computers at home.
Just be prepared to be called "sir" by the students; you might not feel all that much older than they are, but you are, and they'll treat you that way.
Be aware of the politics around the groups or your department, but steer clear of it if you can. You won't be able to win those battles; those other folks live for it.
Some of that sounds bitter (and, well, it is), but a good department with good co-workers and a good boss makes for a fun job, just like corporate.
Good luck
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
I think it was Philip Roth in "The Human Stain" that said it best. I'm paraphrasing (because I don't have the exact quote) -
University politics are the dirtiest, because the stakes are so low
1 and 2 I think are true at almost any U. although 1 varies. I have gone through a stretch, of three months now with no actual work, (I work for an adjunct commercial arm of the U., (things have been a bit slow.)) other than some self-generated infrastructure stuff. Four project have been on continuous hold for some time now. That stretch of boredom alone is one of the bigger reasons that I'm leaving. (regarding 2, we had a great admin, reimbursements were *very* fast!)
As far as 3 goes, I'm currently at a military U. I may be one of only two pacifists there. (that is another reason...) Not so much right wing as Ultra-PC. Still a bit disturbing finding yourself occasionally surrounded by heavily armed/hormonal teenagers discussing the kill zone of the modern hand grenade. And the cafeteria is something I have only braved once.
Respond here if you're interested in a job. DB/web/UI programming. 'killer' benefits. Rural environment.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
I work for a large Canadian University doing LAN admin support for 14 libraries and it works for me. I won't get rich working here but when I consider the pros and cons compared to public sector jobs couldn't think twice my decision to stay in a university environment. Some of the benefits, 4 day work week in the summer months, 3 weeks vacation a year (compared to the lousy 1 or two week vacation you might get in pub sector), not including the extra week off between xmas and new years, Knowledgeable and reliable team, Good honest managers, centralized it management, I'm even in a frikin union they have to pay me overtime if they want me to work extra. Some of the cons, yes they have committees and useless meetings there is a type of hierarchy but its no worse then anywhere else. Working University is no picnic you have still have deadlines, projects, testing, implementation phases, and people (loosers) can still piss you off. In the end I guess it helps if you work for a big university with a lot of money
Keep in mind, reverse sexism, racism and anti-american sentiment are still very chic at the university level. While I often applaud people who question the direction our country is headed, these political overtones will target the average /. geek (read: white guy).
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Yes then, but today ...
Toward the tail end of the boom Caltech reslotted their non-PhD technical staff into new paygrades for technical work. Word on the street was that they couldn't keep admins and software people from leaving to industry jobs when the paygrades were scaled to reward people for advanced degrees. I saw my bachelor's only programmer salary raise 10% at that time.
The rest of parent's experience is mostly still true, except that benefits are eroding in academia too, and there's less security than there once was, when you're working on government money (well NASA, NSF, NIH money anyway).
The biggest thing for me (and I'm sure others have chimed in regarding other aspects) is the flexibility I get to develop in whatever way I please and I'm not really constrained by anything else than meeting the needs of our clients. The nicer thing about having clueless supervisors is that they're willing to give you some flexibility with what you do and how you do it.
--pete
I interviewed for a university staff software development position. The interview went very well. They were very positive and hinted that they would offer me a position. When I asked when I could expect to hear from them I was told they were interviewing for 6 weeks and they were two weeks into the interview cycle so I could expect to hear from them in a month! I took me less then two weeks to get two industry job offers at 50% more then the university. I withdrew from consideration. My point is - it's a different world.
Same way in gov/millitary, some times you're better off consuming the excess into barterable material, that way you might say something like this to your local obstructionist, "gee the crt monitor is kinda big for your desk, maybe I could trade you that 19 inch LCD we hardly ever use, OBTW could you sign off on this...." of course that might be re-inforcing an undesirable behavior
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Moral of the story: Steal from your employer, get caught and you will get rewarded with a year and a half vacation.
i think it depends a lot on your department.
some people get good IT budgets, lots of training funding, lots of staff, etc. other people have a lot less resources, especially if a centralized IT department is supposed to be meeting their needs (these people will often hire their own IT people and duplicate the centralized IT services).
in general though, the benefits will be good; and the atmosphere, dress code and deadlines will be a lot more relaxed. supervision is often lax or non-existent. the parking will suck, the salary will be considerably lower, and the bureaucracy can be crushing.
there will be a lot more "process" people -- people who care how decisions are made, as opposed to what (if anything) actually gets done. some people will care very deeply about education, public service, community relations etc. (especially if you work for a public or urban university).
in my experience, the whole PC/politics thing is overblown. there is a lot of PC doublespeak, but most of the people just roll their eyes. there is a lot of political infighting, but you can pretty much avoid it if you're not involved in campus-level budgeting. i've seen incompetent people loudly and routinely say incredibly offensive things, mock anything political, and keep their jobs (and get promoted) for years and years.
-esme
after 7 years with THE medical research university in San Antonio, i have learned the following:
1) micromanagers abound, especially when your boss is an idiot. expect to get nothing worthwhile done and have constant interruptions while making no real progress whatsoever.
2) the level of political infighting would make Washington D.C. proud. no one lasts long in the system without taking sides. and woe be unto you if you choose the wrong side.
3) favoritism... ohhhhhhh, favoritism. let me count the nepotistic ways... your own butt may be on the line regardless of how hard you work, but your manager's daughter or the director's son will be brought on regardless of how many people have to be "constructively terminated" to make it happen.
but that in no way summarizes my experience with THE medical research university in san antonio.
some other fun stuff you can expect working for a University:
- your boss with an MA can't spell, can't manage his way out of a paper bag after 10 years experience, and can't seem to get anything done despite earning 3 times your salary.
- if you are not the CYA-type, you soon will be when someone crawls out of the woodwork and blames you for a Solaris workstation not having a login banner or screensaver with said banner, despite that same person making you INTENTIONALLY remove that feature just 3 months before, threatening to write you up as you protest the insanity of the move!
- your director, division chief, and manager ALL WORK IN THE SAME HALLWAY! and they all tell you 3 different versions of what they want done. every day.
- your manager, who once wrote you up for suggesting a linux-based firewall at the head of the network during the Great Script Kiddie Onslaught of 1999, is now an outspoken advocate of RedHat and refuses to let you work on any linux-related project out of spite. including the cluster. which runs telnet on every node.
- you stay late to work on certain systems because "the users' home directories are on that server" and the system can't be taken down during 8-5 hours, and even come in to work odd weekends to get mass-patching done (remember, we do everything by hand at THE medical research University), but leave 5 minutes early one afternoon and get a bad performance evaluation for "attendance".
- you might have access to USENET, LUG's, SIG's, tech info libraries, Developer's Networks, wiki's, and Google, but if you don't call Sony on the phone when that monitor's refresh rate looks funny and actually try to TALK TO A LIVE HUMAN BEING AT SONY ABOUT IT - reprimand. don't call Quantum and DEMAND an advance replacement on an out-of-warranty 10-year old SDLT drive without determining if it's the media itself that's bad - reprimand. in fact, we have a joke at THE medical research University. when anything goes wrong with ANY OBJECT in our department, no matter how obscure or non-computer related, we attempt to call the manufacturer and demand service. hence, "call Sony", or "call Linus", or even "call Microsoft" (yes, i have been told that)
- no one in our department gets a raise. ever. EVER. (did i mention that no one gets a raise?) no COLA, no inflation-adjustment, no nothing.
- despite having "no money", your boss orders DLT tape drives like they're going out of style. need a copy of Windows 2000 Server to make password and account administration on the 30 PC's easier? sorry bud, no money. but help me unpack this brand new Sun Blade 2500 i just got for checking my email.
- linux is bad, says your boss, but wait! linux suddenly GOOD! linux GOOD if it comes in a shiny box! pass Go and give RedHat $10k/yr for support. don't forget to call RedHat if you suddenly can't print with the 'tar' command one day.
- one day, you bump into another guy who you thought was working in a different department - turns out he has the EXACT SAME POSITION YOU DO! and you have the same boss! and you both work on the same projects! can you say WTF? (and it's been that way for 3 of the 7 years). expect users to
DON'T READ THIS STUPID SIG!!! Keep your eyes on the road!
There are thousands of bright minds looking for minimum wage, for working carelessly, casually and temporarily. Thats University.
And that may mean hundereds of bright CS minds in a large university. Most of those will not mind a part time job to pay for books and beer and contraception. Theyre not paying tuition from that work.
So if you look for work as a student, you'll get enough money to buy you coffee, and maybe bus tickets to here and there. If they're looking for fulltime positions which really hold the University structure up, they might post it elsewhere, or just give it to the student who'se worked in that department longest. You wont find those jobs posted in bright yellow and pink in the corridors, more like the city's newspapers.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I have worked at CUNY in NYC for 3 years now. The main things that I have discovered about working in a university environment are:
:)
1. Make sure you are in the 'System'!!!
I was promoted recently, and this confused payroll to the extent that my first check since the promotion came 6 weeks after the fact.
2. Whenever providing a timeline for a project, double (if not triple) the time to compensate for the bureaucratic B.S. that will definitely prolong development time.
That's a fact. You can almost work out a formula for this. To illustrate, I recently created a web interface to move a prof's course from BlackBoard5 to BlackBoard6. It took 2 days to get port 80 open for the server. The reason given by the portmaster was "I don't want to act too quickly, because then everyone will expect it".
3. The benefits definately add to the salary
I pay about $14 a month for full health coverage. You really can't beat that. Thats $168 per year. Also, vacation time is mandatory ( if you are in a Union situation
4. The work environment is nice and liberal
I love the people that I work with. My department is friendly, and with a few exceptions, everyone is a "friend" with each other (in an office sense).
Have fun! The pay will not be what it is in the private sector, but I'm happy with my situation for the time being, and job security is nothing to laugh at in the tech industry.
Working for a university is like kissing your sister. Technically and theoretically it 'counts' as experience but honestly nobody is going to give you credit for it.
... and when you say you 'work for the college' that's the first mental impression they get - and it is going to be a hard sell to overthrow that image. Well that or they remember the BOFH that worked the computer room and will project their resentment onto you (even if only subconsciously.)
Here's the trick - anybody who is somebody went to college and either worked at one of those 'student-work' jobs where they got to goof off for minimum wage, or knew someone who did
\was rejected by the folks handing out the student-work jobs.
\\was poor as hell in college.
\\\still a little bitter about both.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I just started working at a small university doing web development. I knew the pay would be less than in the private sector, but when those private sector jobs don't exist anymore you can't complain too much. The benefits overall are pretty good and compensate for the pay. And I like the academic environment. And I'll get the hang of school politics. Dealing with professors is like herding cats. Tenure is much like the force. It has a dark side and a light side. I'm doing what I like. I'm working in my career field again after having been out of it for so long. I did keep my skills up. Every job has it's down side, but as long as the work is rewarding, and so far it is, I'll take those challenges in stride. Compared to working in a call center, it's heaven.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I currently work as a research associate for the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Mostly because I am interested in the employment (it's an extension of the senior design project I participated in). You don't get paid as much, but the benefits are great as many other posters have recalled.
One thing to remember is that the university moves slower than a well-run business. Most businesses clip along pretty quick and when a boss figures out what he wants, BAM, he wants it done. In the university system it isn't so. Even if they want it done, it needs to get approved by the people who hold the money strings, they need to find the right account to pull the money out of, tons of paperwork moving between multiple buildings, etc. The pace of university stuff in general is slower, which can be nice. People take hour and a half lunches, and not all at the same time. You are given a bit more freedom to solve a problem the way you see fit. For example, even as an entry-level (I just graduated 1 month ago) engineer, my second week on the job, I have minimal supervision, I haven't seen my boss this week, I get emails on occasion asking me to check up on certain things or commenting on reports/submissions I send to him. For me, this is a vacation. My particular contract lasts until December when the Army will stop funding the account I am being paid out of; I will probably seek non-university employment after that. I'm an Aerospace Engineer; kinda hoping to get into a missile defense job.
-everphilski-
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Of course, being a conservative I hate W[1], so that probably helped. If you're a dittohead it's going to be rough- you're talking to people who've spent years studying politics and the daily talking point memo isn't going to cut it.
[1] Conservatives used to believe in balanced budgets, smaller federal government, free trade and minimally interventionist foreign policy. Too bad they don't anymore- I might vote for one again.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
Employment for a state U typically involves what's known as "work for hire." There's no way that any work you do as a part of your duties for the U, that you get to claim ownership of our work. The only exception is if you are a member of the faculty, then you may own a portion of your work, or even all of it, but generally the U keeps permanent, non-exclusive rights to use it.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
While the benefits are great (tuition, lots of paid time off+all paid holidays, access/discounts on all other University offerings), the politics can be treacherous. As the College/School (some dept. within a University) IT Director, I found out the hard way that politics trump all. With tenure being a mainstay at the University of New Mexico, faculty ruled all. Even University administration was pretty impotent. The best anology is the Feudal system: A king/queen being the President/Provost/Chancellor, mostly for show, while all the colleges and departments are like fiefs ruled by lesser yet more secure/entrenched faculty, each having their own court. The pecking order goes: tenured faculty, administration, associate faculty, staff, bottoming out on students. Various faculty would set out to sabotage each other because of some ancient, petty slight for which they were still upset. Even when the faculty seem to be getting along, getting them going in the same direction is like herding cats.
Another problem is, like all government jobs, the "can't make me work, can't fire me" attitude exhibited at many levels. There were employees of many years who are dead weight, in fact some who are illiterate, but since they made it past their probationary period, they were never fired/let go. Couple them with the tenured professors who are just drawing a paycheck, but really have no business being there anymore (too old, lost motivation, etc.) and it begins to grind on you. Don't get me wrong, there are many wonderful, inspirational, productive people there, but there are also many, many bureaucrats. I will never accuse UNM of efficiency.
The last thing I will mention here is: If it is a state run institution, productivity is not really a priority. Like you, coming from the private sector and wanting a decent job while I continued my education, I was appalled because there was no sense of urgency or competitiveness. Every year, there was going to be a slightly larger budget, no matter what the performance. So, absent a profit incentive all of the above issues were allowed to fester. If a private company becomes so disfunctional, it goes out of business and everyone loses, top to bottom. But a state funded University is a machine that only gets bigger. There is no real oversight. No independent auditors. That would "threaten academic freedom". Bullshit! It's the taxpayers' money, the students' tuition and societies' needs from and for which these institutions exist. They should produce capable, informed students and truly innovative, pertinent research. The more familiar with the "system" I became, the more I wanted out of it. Don't get me wrong, much good still comes out of such places, but they could be much better.
In summary: If you are a goal oriented, team player who values efficiency and progress, then Universities are not necessarily the place to have a carreer without a Ph.D. If you are looking to pigeon-hole yourself where the barest minimum is required; where security is almost guaranteed, all while your focus is acheiving many personal goals outside the institution, then you will find the University a perfect environment to exploit. It is, afterall, a feudal system. Be a favorite of the royals and you will have a good life, otherwise you're just a serf.
Hi! No names, named, but I worked at HUGE university located in Palo Alto, Ca, which is considered one of the best in the country, for 5 months before I couldn't take it anymore. I am a web designer so his may be different for you, but here were my thoughts: 1)Pay sucks. 2) I had to PAY to park there. 3) bennifits were outstanding 4) people were very nice, for the most part, but nothing actually got done. 5) All good ideas to make things happen were roadblocked by politics, money (and this is a VERY proitable private university), and people who didn't know what was going on, and therefore were afraid of any type of change whatsoever. 6) The job I was hired to was in no way close to what I was actually tasked to do (manager of online services became database entry). 7) It's a good place to work if you never actually want to do anything and have no personal pride in what it is that you do. If you dig programming and like to think of and actually execute cool stuff, avoid a university like the plague. If you want to slack off and don;t really care, it is ideal (no judgement here, just warning you). I hope this helps!
Politics: Most folks who have worked in industry a while and moved to University don't grok the culture shift, esp. the academic side of the house. Personal relationships and consensus building is critical for success. "Top down" management style is met with fierce resistance. Everyone *thinks* he/she is your boss. Money: If you are doing this for the money you need to seek psychiatric assistance. Guarantee: You will be grossly underpaid for your work. Unless you are a consultant in which case you can charge $250/hr and deliver a half baked system 2yrs late and still get paid. Expectations: You will find two classes of employees: Intractable, lazy, incompetent and bright, enthusastic, and capable. Over time it will become hard to distinguish one group from the other. So why bother? You will learn a lot on your own and be given lots of autonomy to deliver systems the way you want. If you are self motivated, have lots a ideas and can deal with the quirky personalities you will fit right in. Best fo luck!
It will take 3 months before you get your first paycheque.
I don't want to sell you death sticks.
Having worked in a tech support and back end server dept for 5 years, you should know now that the development cycle on any project will be June-September, with a rollout by fall. Everything major must be completed then, and there may be time during the school year while keeping up with occuring bugs/problems/ornery faculty that you may work on what you've developed.
Most of the guys I worked with used the times school was in session to start fleshing out long-term product ideas and best approaches, so that they could implement and roll them out during break periods. Luckily, we were only providing a service for about 4000 students, so it was a bit more lax on rolling out potentially dangerous changes.
So the key point would be making changes is like trying to move a house with your bare hands. Good luck though!
I like my job at Brock University. But don't do anything without getting paid! They may have you confused with the slaves they commonly refer to around here as interns.
.\.\att Clare
A confused postdoc. Postdocs have shitty salaries (approximately 2x a grad student salary), at universities at least. I'd expect staff to be paid better tham them.
But back to the University and Politics, the other thing is that if you're not a PhD, then you probably won't get to be Principal Investigator on grant proposals, and that means you'll be constantly in the shadow of someone else no matter how good the work you do is.
A confused poster. Principal investigator is a research position, and for various rather obvious reasons (e.g., the funding agency will expect it...), it's expected to be filled by a researcher. A PhD is a "token" that others believe you can do research, without one you'll need some other evidence that you can do that job (e.g., you're famous in the field). A bit of a catch-22 of course, but what do you expect?
I work for a university with about 20,000 students. I am in the library as a tech guy. I get paid 40 hours a week, $12/hr--I have a BS in chemistry from the same school. I worked here as a student, and they offered me a job after i graduated. Basically my job consists of removing spyware.
Salary: I make a lot less than I could be making in a field dedicated to my degree. My prospects for a raise are about $0.50/hr per year--and that is if I am lucky.
Work environment: Very relaxes, I can come and go as I leave, but I always get paid 40 hrs/week. I probably only work 25-30 of those hours, and even when I am here "working" I am browsing the internet or playing nerf guns with the librarians, etc.
Politics: I don't really contact them, except for the old/young gap. I guess that happens in industry as well. Basically, 1/2 of the full-time staffers have been here since the 1980's and the other 1/2 are 2-3 years out of college. You either stay for 5 years or you stay forever (the say). Tension builds up over who is a "real" worker and who isn't, but it doesn't really matter in the long run. We all still get along.
Parking: There will always be less spots each year you come back. THey keep tearing down parking lots for new buildings and we keep getting more students. Plus, the rates go up every year.
Fringe benefits: Free courses (6 undergrad or 3 grad hours a semester--not enough to get out with a 2nd degree anytime soon but more than enough to keep you entertained), medical, dental, life, PTO, free books!, everything the uni has you still get for free, etc etc etc. It is like being a college student and then some.
So the salary sucks, but it is a living wage. I consider this job a transition into grad school, and I am leaving in the fall, along with 4 other full-time staffers that were hired the same week I was (all graduated with me). I guess they will recycle their staff again.
not only might you have to deal with Union bullshit (big union in Oregon likes to go on strike every legislative session), state civil service rules (why is THAT loozer getting a merit raise and I'm not? What? He's bumping me from my job???), but beware "sensitivity" issues.
We all more or less act civilly towards each other in most situations. But universities is one place where things can get blown way out of proportion quickly and publicly.
Oh, yes. And if you're in a grant-based job, hopefully your grant writers do a good job. Otherwise, you can be at the mercy of state legislators who do not see the benefit of providing future employees (which does cost $$$) while slashing university budgets.
If you have a budget, guard it well.
Just so. I grant (pardon pun) that I was oversimplifying. I've been in positions where I could have probably worked around this because of open-minded management, my skills and publications. But it was not in academia, and I think that fact was relevant.
And whether it happens in academia or not, it's certainly not the norm. People at some places I've interviewed at both universities and Government sponsored think tanks have come right out and said plainly "expect there to be a pecking order where mostly your lack of PhD will hold you back", even now after nearly 25 years of career experience.
Contrast this with most other places you can work who will tell you that after 5-10 years in the field, if you've not done enough to show that your degree was worth something, they're not going to believe a degree as a credential, they're going to want to see your subsequent work experience. And if you have done something cool, they'll also usually freely say they'll count that as a substitute for formal education.
In fact, it's funny, but some places will advertise they want Masters + 3 years or 5 years with a Bachelors, or some places will say Masters + 10 years or PhD + 5 years, and when you think about it, they're really saying "we count 5 years working on a PhD as 5 years working, or 2 years working on a Masters as 2 years working. Well, gee, since I have to pay to get the Masters and someone pays me to work, I've often wondered why get the degree at all. It just builds up debt and offers sometimes less than you might think if you had already the opportunity for a good solid job for those same two years. Pretty much only in the arena of getting employed by a University or government-funded think tank has a degree ever had a persistent sense of importance, in my experience.
Especially in the modern world, where the interest of business is constantly changing, one of the risks of being in research and academia at all is that your skills can diverge from what business needs. It's easy to convince yourself that you're learning about "what's next", but sometimes industry doesn't go the direction you think or doesn't use the tool you're used to and you're left without the all-important checklist items that modern full-text-search resumes require.
(Others' mileage may, of course, vary. No single person's point of view is going to apply to everyone, so read lots of opinions if you want a real gestalt.)
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
3 weeks vacation a year
Since you brought up vaction, this is one of my favorite benefits of working at a small college. We don't get paid holidays or close for 3-day weekends on national holidays (except Thanksgiving and Christmas), but over the course of the year we rack up at least 6 work-weeks worth of "Combined Time Off". This time is for any sick days and/or vaction. You could spread it out over the national holidays if you wanted and then take a 3 week vacation, or you can do as I do and work on Memorial Day, New Years, Presidents Day, etc and then take one big 5-week chunk. Very nice and flexible.
- Adam
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
I'm a bit confused about "times the story has already been posted?". I'm not checking for duplicates of any kind, on story level, if you are thinking about that. Maybe you can contact me at my email for this one (or post in the forums), I'll be very glad for ANY feedback.
1. Do not deal with academics of any description 2. Do not deal with geeks/nerds of any description 3. ??? 4. Profit
At CSUN we had a small school that closed next to the campu so people started parking there. One of the lots, the one nearest to CSUN had only one entrance so of course during finals some moron parks his/her car right in the entrance and blocks everyone else from leaving. Fortunatly for the car owner there was never a big enough crowd of pissed of students to roll the car. By the end of the day nothing look like it worked on that car, busted lights, bent antenna, flat tires and of course a parking ticket. HAHAHAHAHAHA Ooooo the sweet memories of school life.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I completely agree with the parent.
1) I love my current commercial job, but there's always this sense that no matter how much I do, at the end of the day there are more tasks to do than when I began. My management is great about prioritizing projects so that this doesn't become a burden on us, but if they ever decided that we suddenly need to implement all of these great ideas we're coming up with, half the people are going to stop coming up with great ideas so they can survive, and the other half will quit. At my university jobs my role was always philosophically more of a sustaining one than a developing one, even when I was working on new projects. I was rewarded for the work I did, but I never felt there was any danger of being a victim of my own success.
2) Make friends with a well-organized, well-connected person higher up in your organization as soon as you can. Every bloated university bureaucracy has a few people in each department who can really get things done, but as this tends to suddenly make them dangerously popular, they learn to be somewhat difficult to get ahold of. You end up with this whole underground illuminati organization of people who know they can count on each other to get things done. You want to get in on this as fast as you can.
3) Pay careful attention to those benefits. Some of them could pay off HUGE in terms of things like retirement planning. Because of screwy budgeting policies (especially for a public university) you could find yourself living frugally but filling up a 401k quite quickly. I generally agree with parent's comments about tolerance as well. The liberalism is also true, but depending on what part of the country you're in, that might mean the liberal wing of the Republican party.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
I worked as a lecturer for 2 years and ended up hating it with a passion for a number of reasons. This is a bit of a rant, but most of the posters above are very positive, and I think it is important that the other side of university employment is raised.
One of the posters above hit the nail on the head: Universities sell degrees. What this means is that the pressure is on to pass students no matter what. This means that students that know nothing get degrees. I heard of a case where a student went to one of the senior staff members and asked to give his degree back because he had realised that he had learnt nothing! I eventually got sick of being told to adjust the marks to pass more students. We were given "guidelines" about the average number of students that had passed in previous years. These guidelines then became the minimum required pass rate. Even the senior staff who had been presenting the same course at the same level for decades were forced to adjust marks to lower their standards. My conscience could not let me be part of a system where second year electronics students still do not know the difference between series and parallel circuits.
Publication pressure was a major issue. Teaching chewed up most of our time, so there was very little time for anything else. Yet we still had to publish 1 publication credit per year. But there was a catch! A journal paper is only 0.75 credits. And the credit for a paper is split equally between the authors. This meant that a person studying towards a degree (anyone without a PhD) had to produce 3 journal papers per year because half of the credit went to their advisor. The senior staff loved this idea because they got lots of journal publications for an hour meeting a week. The young staff had no opportunity to progress because they always had too much work to ever produce enough publications to be promoted.
Universities are mad about patents and intellectual property at the moment. The upshot of this was that my contract with the university said that anything I thought of in my field of specialisation belonged to the university. Sounds fair? Except that being a lecturer in the department of electrical, electronic and computer engineering meant that that was considered my SPECIALIST field. But that was still not broad enough! The dean of the faculty told me that I was also a specialist in mathematics! The upshot of this is that ANYTHING I did belonged to the university.
And this included consulting - compulsory to establish university credibility and the main way to supplement one's salary. The university forced us to work through their company for anything we did, and that company took 20% of the turnover (not profit) of the project. The problem was that this included nothing. We still had to pay for lab time, equipment usage, lawyers to set up contracts, accountants to sort finances out, etc.. The best bit was that they collected payment from the client, and only way to get our money out of them was through the university's bureaucracy. Basically to do the compulsory consulting we ended up having to jack our prices up by 20% making us uncompetitive, and having to fork out the money to fund the project until the university decided it was time to pay us the money we had earned. It was basically a way for the university to make money for doing nothing while passing the risk to its staff.
In the end I was glad to leave. I do more interesting work, work less hours, get credit and pay for the extra effort I put in, and do not have to deal with the bureaucracy and politics any more.
The students I've known who have worked for the University of South Florida often had to go without pay for several weeks at a time because of incompetent officials in charge of pay kept getting tangled in red tape. The idiots in charge didn't care if students couldn't make rent, car payments, or even eat much besides Raman noodles. It was always a sort of "Oops, their bad, so sorry. Who is next in line?" This sort of thing seemed to happen every month or two over a period of several years. Sometimes good professors would end up lending their own money to the students.
Hopefully your gig will go better.
http://www.marxist.com/
OK - here's what I've experienced working in Higher Ed for 7 years now...
;) If you're looking to impress and move on to bigger things within the sector make sure you put some effort into working out who really holds the power (usually people like academic standards boards, research committees etc).
:)
There are a lot of similiarities and a few notable differences. The biggest difference comes from a general difference in direction for the organisation. HE institutions aren't profit-focused and as a result a few things happen:
1. The dynamics of the politics is somewhat different - without profitability driving everything forward the prestige is shared out between different departments on very traditional views of their worth rather than any realistic impression of their contribution to the organisation. The main point for you here is that IT gets less prestige in HE than in most profit-chasing organisations.
2. A lot HE places don't run projects on the people+plan+leader+timescale+resources model. They run it more along the person+er??? model. It's really worth checking how a place puts its projects together before signing up or you can end up being lost in an under-resourced project that goes on forever.
3. Resourcing... HE isn't rich but it has access to some resources very cheaply. So - research grads to help out, books, network access, training, labs etc are all likely to be relatively readily available whilst some of the more traditional resources (money, equipment etc) may be a little more scarce.
4. The head-honchos. Working out who you need to impress in a HE institution can be trickier than it looks. Often the people with the power are very much behind the scenes. We love our figureheads and we love, even more, for them to have no real power whatsoever
Hmmm... hope the above is helpful
-- Gaxx
In Business... Education vs Experience.In Education... Education vs Experience.The reasons for this change is the fact when in the buisness environment experience has more value because you can be as book learned as you want but the bottom line is if you can do the work. So you have spend 8 years in school to get a PhD and you get a job with an other guy who has an BS and 3 years experience. And this guy with the BS is working much faster then you because when he programs he uses languages that are more for Rapid Application Development and have all the tools that he needs to get the job done. While you are still dorking with pointers to get your C level string class to work the way it needs to be done.
Alternative in the education field where book learned is where it is at. Experience just doen't cut it because with experience you often learn how to do one thing and do it well and you miss the breth of knowlege or don't bother going further down. So one hour of reading a theory book on how Linux Workes vs. A guy who have been working for Linux for many years and still doesn't know which scheduling system it uses. So when it comes for review and people just start asking him questions about the OS the guy with experience could be loss. While the guy with the PhD has the answer.
But the reason why there is a huge gap between the difference vs education and business is that many people in education look down at business(And many were never seriously in business other then say a Hamburger Flipper Job) while business generally respect education to an extent (Because most people in business were in college at one point). Much like this weeks User Friendly shows in an exaggerated view.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have worked in a US university department now for 2.5 years. I have to agree with everything stated above. Its very interesting and rewarding the pay is adequate the stress is quite low.
I also worked in another semi-academic position for 4 years where the stress was higher mainly because of individual conflicts and politics. So it sort of depends who you are working for.
Many universities are trying to pay Staff (I guess thats what you would be ) along industry lines so you may get paid quite well depending on the level you think you are going for.
We just interviewed for an IT job at our University and I was on the search committee. Only ONE candidate emailed us back to say thank you for taking the time to meet with them and interview them. They appreciated meeting us, etc... Guess who got the job? Most of the IT folks who interviewed had the same skill sets. It's the people skills that are lacking. One of the best things you can do is buy a book about interviewing and what to do/not do.
I worked for Brown University. In hindsight I wish I hadn't left the job.
You'll find academia somewhat less frantic than the real world.
You'll also find pay levels less than the real world. The system most universities use to determine pay scales is out of touch with reality in most cases.
But the general freedom involved with working for a university can't be beat.
Having worked at a University as well as a small local school system, their priorities are to the degree programs and supporting services are secondary. That means it will take longer for decisions on new projects and take less time to decide to cut them.
The best way to get into the system is to know/buddy with a respected professor or administrator(preferred) as they can help to push your agenda. This doesn't mean they will, but it still helps for people to see them talking to you frequently. It really is who you know.
As for salary, expect a salary low to below average, but they typically have good benefits.
And if the project does get approved use all of your money in the alloted time, because if you don't they get to take it back and likely decide to give you less next time.
I've consulted for three different local colleges. Here are a couple things you might want to consider (applyies to colleges in Ohio):
The one caveat about schools and universities; all of the benefits like low-stress, tolerant atmosphere, good benefits, paid-overtime, etc. can disappear quickly if funding decreases and/or the administration changes - leaving you with a job similar to the one in the private sector just with less pay and free library and gym time.
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
I worked for a well known medical school in the Boston area. Like any job, there are ups and downs. I left just as the P.C. police were gaining the most power.
I won't pretend that this school is typical, but since so many other universities try to emulate it here are some things to remember:
1. EVERYTHING is decided by committee, from whether or not you are interviewed to the frosting on the Dean's going away party cake. Decisions take forever.
2. Promotions are usually based on perception and not always reality.
3. We had a running joke about HR. They spend their mornings in meetings making up new rules. They spend their afternoons in meetings finding ways around the new rules.
4. Watch out for "Associate Dean Syndrome" If you try to explain something to an AD and they don't like it or understand - you will be reminded that if you were as smart as he or she you would be an Associate Dean. So their tech problem is your fault.
5. Professors with the biggest grants get the most attention and the highest priority. Yes, size does matter.
6. New PhDs are the worst in terms of personality. They have just spent three to ten years as grad student slave laborers and now they want revenge.
7. Dissenting opinions, either political or technical, will be shouted down. Freedom of speech only means you agree with the current political fashions.
The good stuff:
1. Wages were at marked level
2. Benefits and retirment plans (if you care) are outstanding
3. A lot of time off. Including every holiday celebrated in your state.
4. Knowing I had a hand in the training some of the best doctors in the world. I just hope their education hasn't ruined their ideals.
as topic mentions...I have worked for many different educational facilities (Public Schools...ick, Private College's..yay, and Universities ...ok)
There's always politics involved here...in almost every decision...get used to it. Someone who has no business being your boss, will be it tomorrow. I have seen this scenerio many times in universities, colleges, schools. Directory of Library becomes Director of Information Technology...and 99pct of the time have no idea or what direction they need or want to go..so they start releasing people to look good on saving budgets (error1).. Bring in consultants (error2) [only due to most of these consultants are uneducated from sleezy companies trying to make every extra 1$ possible]...then decide to consolatdate everything possible (error3 ..if done incorrectly as usual). Granted this can be a great direction...if they new how to identify progress rather than regress.
Granted some of my best work days were under a wonderful director of technology (technical...even got his hands dirty)...well staffed (may have not been all paid extremely wonderful..but a break is worth it)...and became a close work force..many I still talk to everyday..unfortunately board of directors said need to save money and one of their biggest ROI's is Information Technology.
I would suggest not to plan to make a permanent job out of it...but plan for it to be very educating. :)
I've worked in the private sector and now I work at a major research University, building software for literary criticism for the humanities department. My background in CS, which implies a great deal of mental acrobatics to be the project manager for this type of stuff. Every day is intriguing and I love the work, but I think most people would run and hide from this sort of task.
;) As CS/engineering types, our mentality is focussed toward technique and concrete matters of what can be accomplished with technology, whereas researchers are after a seemingly mythological thing called "insight." Get used to being baffled by the intensity of the domain logic. Drinking from the firehose is the name of the game, but if make a good-faith effort it can be very rewarding -- if not financially, then most certainly personally.
There is a big difference between working at a teaching college and research institution, the latter typically defined as universities with larger graduate programs, high reputation and a steady flow of grant money. Put simply, there is more money at the latter, but I'm sure there are some exceptions.
The University environment is a more relaxed than the private sector, but don't let people lull you into thinking it s a cake walk. There are deadlines and people put in some late nights and weekends to get things done.
The best part is that you work among smart people. The worst part is that you work among smart people.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+balkaniza tion
Balkanization implies gatekeepers. Pay attention to the power loci that surround admin assistants, front desk staff, etc. If you are blessed with the ability to really like and appreciate other people, be sure to make friends in "low" places. Everything will be easier, and besides, friends can make anything bearable.
Phil
There are good paychecks out in the real world for people who have the ability to do things like this and the integrity to know better.
It sounds like a funny way to get back at someone, but don't expect it to get you much respect from anyone who signs the checks.
The admin people who are responsible for your paperwork will not get in trouble if they delay or lose your documents - you are pretty much at their mercy, relying on their skill and desire to do a good job. Those of you at state-run institutions can stop laughing now.
I have found that if you need special service from them, like when you miss a deadline, it helps if you start your request with the phrase "I am an idiot."
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Most faculty members are fine, many are great, but Universities have some who are crazy and evil. People will be unlikely to tell you flat out, so listen for hints and talk to a bunch of people. Don't work for a specific faculty member unless you know 'em pretty well, or have talked to a bunch of people privately about them.
The crazy ones can be more awful to people around them than anything you've ever experienced. Because they're not just rotten people, they're CRAZY, rotten people.
It's rare, but it happens enough that you need to scope folks out, first.
I worked for a University for 7 years. 1 year as a research assistant, 1 year as a research programmer, and 5 years as a UNIX system administrator. As UNIX admin I had from 2 to 6 student employees working for me. Sometimes my help was amazingly good and other times it wasn't so hot. Some years we were swimming in money and I could buy anything I needed but other years research grants were lean and I had to make due. One boss was a techie himself and gave me reviews that made it sound like I walked on water, my next boss didn't trust techies and gave me scathing reviews. First the good: there is lots of stuff to learn. Instead of having only one or two different platforms like most companies my department had a few of almost every UNIX box known to man. It was a support nightmare but it was fun to have so many different kinds of toys. Much of the work I did was very cutting edge/early adopter; we were doing stuff years before most businesses were. After my years working in a university I was so strong technically that future "real" jobs were a piece of cake. I did have to scale a learning curve on business and proceedure stuff though. Now the bad stuff: pay, expect to make less than half what you would elsewhere. Speaking of politics, there is an old saying, politics in acadamea are so viscious because the stakes are so low. At universities there is a lot of dead wood. Some managers measure their worth by how many people are under them so they create useless positions to fill. Little wars erupt between rival departments, rival colleges, departments and colleges, deans and their departments, etc. When I started out my attitude was that I was there to help everyone else so I never took sides in any of these little wars. This strategy worked well for the first few years but later when my position was in jeoparty I had no allies to call upon. In my case my job description included a lot of non-technical stuff. I ended up spending half of my time doing procurement, inventory and clerical stuff which was a drag. Before you accept a job be sure you know exactly what your responsibilities will be.
Let's try this:
Get one of those 'infant front-packs' and drop a bowling ball into it. You can use a kids' ball - they weigh enough. Then drive to the store with that on, and try - just try to get out of the car. See how far you have to open the door - how far you have to put the seat back.
Be sure to wear the front-pack for 24 hours in a row. See how hard sleeping is, walking, getting out of chairs, etc. I'm not even going to mention details about pressure on a woman's bladder or morning sickness.....
You might consider cutting those ladies a break for a few months. You're young and healthy. Walking is good for you....
And after the kids is born, think about just running to the store for 'one thing' and you need to take your infant with you. You must park, pull the removable seat out - which means you need to open the door wide to get the seat out, then lug the weight of the seat and the kid until you get to a cart or to the stroller.
I've got four kids, and lots of experience carrying those things. They are NOT light!
It's up to you. You may decide to keep kicking dents into others' cars if you like. Depending on the amount of damage you do, that may be a jailable offense.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I got a parking ticket in law school, and was less than pleased.
Bacically because there was still time on the meter.
I actually insisted on the trial. Beforehand, the various metermaids were discussing the guns they'd recently bought as part of their plans to become real cops.
Turns out that he'd actually written down how much time was left on the meter *ON THE TICKET*.
"OK, then why did you right the ticket?"
"The meter handle was cocked."
"Pardon me?"
"People try to do that to get extra time for one more coin."
"I see. How much time was on the meter?"
"42 minutes"
"And what's the biggest coin it takes?"
"A quarter."
"And how long is that good for?"
"Half an hour."
"So the meter couldn't possibly have expired?"
"I don't understand."
(Gee, now there's a surprise).
I did feel sorry for the poor assistant city attorney who had to come out 20 miles to the traffic court to handle this and a similarly silly ticket (issued to someone for parking in a red zone--while he rushed out into the street to help an old lady who fell in the crosswalk)
I think you might have an opportunity to be thankful for the fact that your mother chose to bear one more whelp in your case.
.sig indicates, perhaps truth is irrelevant. But let me ask you this - if you REALLY believe your .sig, why do the handicapped deserve any accomodation at all? If there's no such thing as truth, why is compassion necessary?
Should she have 'kept her legs shut' or was your conception the result of a drunken night? Even if it was drunkenness or accidental, I believe she still deserves some respect and thanks - as do all mothers who sacrifice for their kids, and indirectly for the good of society.
Of course, for someone who believes as your
FWIW, I do tend to park a fair bit from the door. I am relatively young and relatively healthy. You are right. Exercise is good for me, too - even if carrying that infant seat is hard on my back.
My perspective is that having kids is my choice, and it's my privilege to invest my life in building young men rather than merely indulging my selfish desires. We all live out the result of our choices.
I hope that you find your indulgences satisfying. If you ever choose to consider a differing world view, I'd be happy to offer some insights on why I believe the way I do.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
There's a difference between a victim mentality and choosing to honor those who have a harder time because they are doing something that benefits society.
.sig. Perhaps that's an indication that you think it's clever or witty, but can't really bring yourself to live that way.
I agree that we should mandate that provision be made for those with physical ailments or maladies not of their choosing that make movement more difficult. I don't ask that laws be passed to 'protect' expectant mothers.
I do think that as members of a civilized society we can show some compassion, deference, and honor to those who are doing what is self-sacrificial and difficult.
It seems incredibly selfish to complain that a young, unencumbered person is inconvenienced because they must walk an additional 20 feet to get the next parking space over. What's the big deal? Exercise is good for your physique, and honoring others is good for building humility and compassion - things that our 'scientifically enlightened society' is rather short on these days.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
BTW - I notice that you weren't willing to defend your
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?