Pros
I've worked in both the corporate side and academic side of the university. This review is for my current position on the academic side: - The tuition remission benefits are fantastic. If you do grad-level courses, be wary of the classes counting as taxable income, but the benefit is still very much worth taking advantage of - Working as an assistant to a Dean means you come into contact with people from all across the university. You get to meet a wide variety of interesting people and get to look behind the curtain to see how the university operates. - I am fortunate to have a fantastic Dean as my boss- so far all of the Deans I've met at BU are genuinely nice people. He treats me with respect and values my education. He allows me to take classes during my work days and trusts me to make up the time on my own. - The Dean travels a lot and therefore folks in this position might have periods of quietness where they can get some work done at their own pace, followed by periods where the Dean is present and a lot of projects get catalyzed and things get busier. Overall the workload is very manageable - Working with academics really spurs my intellectual curiosity. I'm always learning
Cons
- On the flip side of tuition remission being an awesome benefit, it can greatly reduce your paycheck by counting grad classes as taxable income. You get a fair amount back in your tax return but it makes the summer and fall months particularly difficult, especially with the HCOL in Boston - Faculty are great, but organizing them can be difficult. Some folks are better with email than others. There is a lot of follow-up that needs to be done and you need to take extra initiative to get things organized properly - Pay increases are pretty much maxed out at ~3-3.5% even if your reviews are glowing. It's higher education, so the pay generally isn't as high as in industry. But the tuition benefits help offset this con. - If your school is small, you will be leaned on for more than traditional assistant duties. If you like to learn, this isn't much of a con, but it can be easy to let yourself get task-saturated by wearing too many hats. Also, you don't really get compensated more for that extra work unless you work overtime. - It is difficult to move up as an assistant and stay in your