Pros
- Some coworkers are nice. - Helping students is the best part of the job. - Since everyone in student administration/student affairs is trying to leave the company as soon as possible, there will be a lot of open positions and the possibility of moving up will be more possible.
Cons
- The compensation is extremely low for the area. Most of the people who work there full-time live out in Manteca, Stockton and in crazy far away places because the job doesn't pay remotely enough to survive in the expensive Bay Area. Also, since it is a state job, the compensation is very regulated. Great for someone working at a place like CSU Stanislaus, terrible for people living in more expensive places in California. Your manager might try to get a raise for you, but more than likely HR will shut that down. For example, I have almost 10 years of experience in higher education but they wouldn't pay me more than $47k a year. That was also after an internal move where I took on a LOT more responsibilites than my old job. Also, if there is a salary range on a job posting, don't expect that you can negotiate and get anything more than the bottom figure that is listed. - There is a small amount of people who work here who are actually good at their job. A lot of the people who work there are either very nice but terrible at what they do, or they know how to do their job well but choose not to. The motiviation is overall very low, probably because of how low the compensation is. - More and more responsibilities are being thrown on the student administration staff with absolutely no more compensation. Maybe it has to do with the high turnover in upper management. - HR is terrible. It seems like most of the managers throughout the university have a very hard time communicating with HR and jumping through their many hoops when it comes to hiring, compensation, and everything else in between. - Since it is a state job, don't expect any amenities. There is no filtered water for the employees to drink, just drinking fountains or sinks sprinkled around the university. It was rare to actually have dish soap to wash your dishes with. If a microwave died, it took over a month for it to be replaced. There were many times when there was no toilet paper in the closest bathroom and I had to walk to a different building's bathroom.
