What You Should Know When Taking a University Job? 384
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?"
You should (Score:2, Insightful)
politics... and more politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Charge alot (Score:3, Insightful)
Get a research position (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch out for the Parking Nazis (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it really be that much different? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Same as any job (Score:4, Insightful)
low pay, but no performance pressure (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Written/signed agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
Been There Done That (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:politics... and more politics (Score:3, Insightful)
But that doesn't change the fact that things move along at a slow pace. Which is not bad at least for now for me. I usually get response to my emails in a day or two sometimes even weeks is possible. The key is to push them to do or sign off things. You have to be very proactive and I guess the private sector gave me a good training in that aspect.
But heck a separate room, fat oc-12 line and chicks having problems, it is nice ;)
Re:politics... and more politics (Score:5, Insightful)
What you point out has nothing to do with the university scene; it has to do with the fact that non-techies hire techies. If this bugs you, I would advise you to commit sepuku, as you encounter analogous circumstances should you become a pharmacist, a tool designer, a landscaper, a remodeler, an architect...
Don't like working for people who don't know what you know? Then limit your job search to large companies that employ herds of people who do what you do. You will be a cog, utterly replaceable, with no special knowledge or experience. Don't like that idea? Then limit your job search to small and medium companies where you will be THE tech guy, and your boss will not have the smallest clue about how to do your job.
Welcome to the world of grownups.
Re:Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus my suggestion go ahead and make use of all those facilities and "extras". If I don't get paid a lot so what at least I don't hate my job and I am not getting laid off any time soon.
Re:Watch out for the Parking Nazis (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing that immediately became obvious is that us older students were treated much nicer than the students who were in their teens and twenties.
For example, I received a parking ticket one night. They didn't see the permit because it was obscured by a permit from another college where I was teaching part time. It took no argument at all for it to be dismissed. All I did was tell them what had happened and they immediately dismissed the ticket without any argument at all. If I'd been an undergraduate, it probably would have required a hearing if what everyone else told me was any guide.
And I often ate in the dining halls on campus rather than head off campus to eat. In one dining hall, the cashier would say "Good Morning" to everyone. But when she saw me, it morphed into "Good Morning, Sir. How are you doing this morning?"
I loved it. That was college as it should be experienced.
Working for a University (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
What to expect (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
What I've Seen (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Working for a University (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, who the hell am I kidding, this is slashdot. Of course you didn't.
Know that you'll feel OLD! (Score:2, Insightful)
I've worked in a university IT dept for 6 years... (Score:2, Insightful)
Budgetary nightmares (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Things to know (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't believe you've actually worked in a university environment, but anyway... One thing
is true, that if a university job requires a Ph.D., the requirement is absolute. But your comments seem to indicate that you might have worked briefly as an undergrad researcher or grad instructor something like that, and things you don't understand, you just label and you're done with them.
When two Ph.D. professors are seeking the same gig, I guarantee you that experience does enter into the picture.
Also, when a researcher publishes a paper, his sponsor gets his name on it. In the private sector, when an employee makes a work product, it has the employer's name on it. I don't really see a big difference here, but you're acting like it's some kind of injustice.
"You're always the low guy on the totem pole in academic departments"
If that were true, there would be no pole, now would there?
You aren't passing the responsibility to others for your own failure to succeed in a career, are you?
University Poltics (Score:2, Insightful)
University politics are the dirtiest, because the stakes are so low
Re:Working for a university ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had my salaried university position for 6 months (just had my performance review today, and it went quite well), and although my department is pretty laid-back, I think it's safe to say that it's not too bad. You actually have to work hard at sucking if you want to be fired. However, if you feel 'stuck' or want your job to provide more value than a paycheck, don't be afraid to network with faculty and staff to broaden your horizons or to find the position that most closely matches your interests or field of study.
Another thing -- beware faculty. My position involves development of course content, advertising material, etc (We are a video-production-oriented dept.) so I deal with all sorts, and I must say that many (not all) professors walk in with an ego so large it becomes the biggest setback to reaching a deadline or goal. Be accommodating in situations like these because they WILL NOT. Just leave your ego at home when you come to work in these sorts of scenarios.
Re:politics... and more politics (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in the business world it's a bit different.
No it's not. In the business world there are just as many aggressively ignorant "professionals" who piss away millions of dollars mandating "best of breed" and "business standard" solutions because they don't have a clue. There are idiots in any large group of people.
---
Commercial software bigots - a dying breed.
20,000 Students, University Library Tech (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Same as any job (Score:3, Insightful)
There is more than one, you know.
Re:my $.02 (Score:3, Insightful)
all of the young eye-candy walking around campus.
you won't find that working for IBM or Dell.
Re:Tuition (Score:3, Insightful)
I've also found that if you get your job done well and are a smiling face known school wide then you are all but impervious to being fired. Not that it is impossible and that those same traits won't get you far elsewhere but I think you are safer than in the corporate world.
The tuition thing varies school to school. I've worked for two universities now (one a public state school and now this private school). The public school always whined about not having $$$ and tuition waivers were more of a myth than a reality. At this private university now, it is common place and many of my coworkers take full advantage of this benefit (I certainly considered it a benefit when applying). You can have a 30 plus thousand dollar a year Master's degree tuition waived with your supervisor's magic wand.
The trick is, if you work for an university and plan to take advantage of this, become very good friends with your supervisor who can sign off for this and if your grades are a worry in applying to the school, become friends and the most responsive tech support to the admissions decision makers in the track you decide to pursue if possible. Small talk about your educational goals and giving them extra special attention can net you a courtesy admit even when you're not the most highly qualified because you have a colossal in!
Also, plan to be there for the long haul (at least a year before you start applying for admission) and don't jump ship as soon as you get your degree. There are lots of vultures doing this and they can not use the job as a reference later because their co-workers feel they were taken advantage of. University folk like to take care of their own but despise the people who crash the party for the free booze and food then leave when they've had their fill.