MIT Reviews

Pros

2 weeks paid vacation a year, great health plan, and matching 401(k) contributions up to 5%. Holy smokes, Batman! It's great. There's always something interesting on campus; research talks, student group activities, shows, hacks, you name it. And if you can't network here, you can't do it anywhere.

Cons

In a sponsored research staff position supported by grant funding, there are no opportunities for raises. Salaried positions are paid monthly, which is kind of a pain.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the students! They're what makes this place so great.

Pros

The faculty and students, the resources (in terms of equipment, literature, etc) are unparalleled; most people are willing to help out if they have the time

Cons

There is a bit of competitiveness in this type of environment; faculty could be very busy and unaccessible at times. Being a research assistant sometimes mean being very self-motivated

Pros

Brilliant people, incredible opportunities, generous funding (in some labs)

Cons

Tough work ethic in some research groups.

Pros

Varied backgrounds to work with, great professional experiences to use after graduation, vast amount of resources for advancement, and overall interesting experience.

Cons

Work may not be appropriate for the job level (mainly not enough). Minor communication problems between advisers and workers can impede work.

Pros

Excellent reputation for research, great labs, great collaboration possible with several institutions, hospitals nearby, good resources for starting up a company out of a lab.,

Cons

High cost of renting.
Very poor pay for post docs but probably the same as most universities. But extremely poor pay to living cost ratio makes life much harder.

Advice to Senior Management

The days where faculty took an active interest in launching a post doc's career seem to be gone. I wish the faculty are reminded about their mentoring roles. While giving a post doc a lot of latitude is a good thing, preparing them for a career in academia from grant writing, networking, helping then understand and manage research budgets, effective teaching and just teaching them to play the academic "game" needs to be reenforced. Post docs are like artists, struggling to pay their bills even as late their mid 30s owing to their love for science. A monthly career plan meeting with faculty where vital academic skills and passed on from faculty to post doc and sincere mentoring would be greatly appreciated. Even graduate students live better lives than postdocs who usually have outgrown the ability to share housing. So postdocs need to be given the most importance by faculty. Sometimes a post doc is brought in through a research grant from a private firm that makes publishing almost impossible owing to the private firm's reluctance to disclose information. A post doc must be given greater responsibilities than a graduate student and should always be given to opportunity to better projects yielding to more publications for jump starting a career in academia. All this is said with the expectation that the post doc is enthusiastic and hard working. This calls for some compassion from faculty who seem to be all too consumed by their own academic rate race.

Pros

MIT is one of the best research institutes in the world

Cons

poor benefit for postdoc with family,e.g. expensive health insurance and gym membership

Advice to Senior Management

postdoc are special group which has lower incomes and poor benefit

Pros

Interesting colleagues, work can be challenging and fun. There's lot of cutting edge work going on around campus and access to lectures and other activities is enriching.

Cons

Departments and offices are inconsistently run, depending on your supervisor you can have a great experience or an awful one. There's no attempt to set institutional standards around supervision or performance management. The human resources department doesn't intervene, even when situations become so severe that legal action is involved.

Advice to Senior Management

Implement basic standards like annual performance reviews and hold supervisors accountable. Deal with disfunctional department heads, rather than ignoring the problem.

Pros

MIT is very flexible. There is a strong work/life balance. The students are amazing and that's what keeps me here. They strive to make the world a better place. That makes it worth it.

Cons

MIT demands a lot from its staff. It's easy to get burnt out here. In addition to that, annual salary increases don't follow cost of living increases, and aren't guaranteed. It means that new hires typically make more than people that have been working here for years. The pay scale increases disproportionately to cost of living salary increases.

Advice to Senior Management

Care about your staff more.

Pros

Great Benefits and it's a very prestigious university. Many brilliant people with very creative minds.

Cons

There are not many cons I find working at the Media Lab. Overall it's a good experience.

Pros

MIT is great - I really enjoy everything about it.

Cons

long hours at times
nothing big to report - food on campus is pretty poor, but there are plenty of off-campus options.