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?"
It's not what you know... (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
don't work so hard! (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Same as any job (Score:3, Interesting)
(To add something constructive overall, though: Professors are used to having students: I.e., by and large every professor considers himself the president of his own little corporation..)
not too bad... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Working at a University (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Money Ask for to much (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Clublove.com (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Same as any job (Score:2, Interesting)
However, where I worked, point 1 was not true. It was stressful. You were working with a lot of incompetent people (compared to the private sector jobs I've had) and that in itself was very stressful. They don't know what they're doing, or what you're doing, but that doesn't necessarily mean they won't have very specific opinions on how you should do your job. Or promise that their department can do a year's worth of work in a month's time.
And, a lot of people were under the axe. If the more incompetent and lazy were laid off first, we could've taken some relief in that. But, no. The politically connected were spared no matter how little work they did.
And, yes, some people where I worked did have mandatory overtime. For over a year. Because they laid off too many of the people in their department who actually were doing work.
Re:Watch out for the Parking Nazis (Score:2, Interesting)
Many years ago I was a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. One day I was reading in the school newspaper about how the parking enforcement office had started impounding cars with excessive parking fines.
I was outraged, and continued reading. The article had a short interview with the head of parking, who discussed the reasons for it (which I don't remember). It then had an interview with a student whose car had been impounded, and he was complaining about how with rising tuition and other costs he couldn't afford to get his car out of the yard, and how was he going to get to school, and so on.
The article then noted that the student had over $1500 in delinquent parking fines, which at the time was almost the full tuition for a single quarter. I stopped being sympathetic at that point, and started cheering for the parking enforcement people.
As a recent transplant myself... (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Same as any job (Score:2, Interesting)
Not quite... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Same as any job (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in the systems division of the general libraries of a major research university, and it's easily the most exciting and positive environment I've ever worked in. We get to work on a variety of projects, of different sizes, and based on different technologies. A lot of our developers are making a living and pursuing research interests at the same time. We regularly make open source releases, and our student employees are very skilled.
Your descriptions of incompetent management and poor priorities, honestly, are so foreign to me that I have a hard time believing you've ever worked in such an environment.
Working for a university ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Could it really be that much different? (Score:4, Interesting)
It can be different than working in the faceless corporation. You just have to be in the right group. I'm staff at a large urban university, and it is great.
First off, I get to use the athletic facilities. That means I can swim 2000 meters at lunch every day.
Two, its very laid back. I work with a lot of foreigners, and we have a joke about the lab being on "French Standard Time".
Three, the researchers are no-nonsense and committed. They're used to doing things for themselves, but very grateful if you can help them out.
Four, lots of comaraderie. They pull all nighters, I don't but I don't punch out early, either.
Five, great benefits. Tuition reimbursment. Free public transportation.
Six, good environment. I work in a secured area, but there are always interesting surgeons and brain-scientists around. Fun people.
Seven, you are expected to challenge yourself. Always good, and I work with some highly motivated, world class scientists.
Eight, you can do something you believe in, not just something that fills some economic niche.
Nine, job security. Nobody gets fired (though we all wish sometimes that people were).
Ten, you get to work with some cool toys. I won't go into specifics, but my lab (about 20 people) spends over $200,000 on technology to work with each year.
The bad side -- its a beauracracy like any large organization. BUT the resources are there if you have the patience to figure out which strings to pull.
The bottom line is a university job is like any other. Make sure you have a good boss, and that even if you don't align your goals with hers, you can sleep at night knowing your working toward that end.
Re:my $.02 (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm only 3 years into a university career, but I couldn't agree more. As you say, while the pay may be numerically lower, the low stress, realistic expectations and great benefit plans make up for that and then some.
I started off scraping by as an intern at student wages, but have done good work and [after waiting for two years of burocratic slowness] have seen my salary more then double in a six-month period. I'm still not making a killing, but life is good in so many other ways that my desires for raw cash are superceded by my desires of a "good life" that might come in various forms.
As well, the university doesn't have to worry about me leaving in the middle of my [several-year] project as there is so much room to direct and grown my work that it has become my baby, not just something I do for the pay.