MIT Reviews

Pros

Good stepping stone for academic or industrial careers.

Cons

Does not let you be PI on grants. Does not allow you to formally advice even BS students. Pay is too low. (Even if your PI wants to pay you more, he's not allowed to)

Advice to Senior Management

Provide proposal writing experience and student advising experience.

Pros

Get to meet some interesting people from all over the world, work with some of the smartest faculty, attend some fun Boston outings (sports, receptions), decent pay, free education

Cons

Absolutely no room for growth, incompetent people can't be fired (so you work with a lot of them -- non-faculty), no raises (1-2% a year),

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more and try to create incentives and room for growth for your employees

Pros

access to anything that you want to learn

Cons

not much of group efforts

Advice to Senior Management

there should be internal group reviews and feedback

Pros

Fantastic benefits, name recognition, access to faculty and student knowledge

Cons

As a staff employee, we're constantly forgotten, unrecognized, and mistreated. In my department many employees have been there for 30+ years and are set in how things run and don't want any changes. As a new employee, I needed to settle into their ways or my life would be made hard. Directors are not willing to make changes for the better because it will make waves and cause political issues. In the 2 years I was there, I received 2.5% cost of living raises each year. I was told that my department is not able to issue any merit based raises.

Pros

Intelligent co-workers
access to top minds and funding

Cons

lots of work, egotistical people, stressful, somewhat antisocial

Advice to Senior Management

keep it up

Pros

There are many talented individuals in the labs, we get very flexible hours, we can work remotely if we like to

Cons

There was a lack of management of the team at the research group I was working, there were long unfruitful meetings

Advice to Senior Management

Improve time management, keep people in the team up to date with what is going on, have more direct work descriptions

Pros

Great and resourceful community. Helpful colleagues.

Cons

Benefits are not very good. Some level of bureaucracy.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat postdocs better

Pros

MIT is a great place to work because you have access to so many competent people and amazing facilities. They really allowed me to grow in my role and take on as much as I felt I could.

Cons

There are the typical issues with academic politics.

Pros

Working on a research project (and in a graduate program in general) I was surrounded by briliiant, inspiring people. I felt that I was continually learning and contributing to something larger than myself.

Cons

Difficult to maintain momentum in research while balancing coursework (particularly when working with a team and semi-absentee professor). It is easy to head into a project bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and to loose steam when team members don't hold up their end of the bargain.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't bite off more research than you can chew! There are a few professors (no all!) that instigate one big idea after another without doing the follow through. It sucks to be the grad student that put sweat and tears into a project only to see it get swept to the side because a professor has a short attention span or lacks the management skills to pull it off.

Pros

A wide range of experience

Cons

Experience doesn't look as good to potential employers as internships with companies off campus.
Low pay

Advice to Senior Management

none