University of Texas System Reviews in Austin, TX Area

Pros

Great working environment. Flexible. Great staff.

Cons

Non competitive salary. Byzantine organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Clarity of direction and strategy.

Pros

Great global opportunities to work with new innovations

Cons

Decision makers have no knowledge of real world innovation and how real world works. Lead Professors only academic and live to keep their jobs, not to help getting innovations on market. No knowledge of financial costs or real world expenses. They also take advantage of emerging market governments contracting with them to aid commercialization, when only teaching them academia outside of classroom giving them opportunities to travel all over the world at other country's expense but never getting products on market. They overkill analysis, as they get paid for paper work. So country is charged thousands for analysis, when 5 min of common sense for free, was all that was necessary. They also use students (for cheap student pricing) instead of experienced graduates of their own program who could really help companies, because they want to keep money for their own needs more than help emerging country.

POOR LEADERSHIP. POOR MISSION AND GOALS. TALKING THE TALK BUT CAN"T AND DON"T WANT TO WALK THE MILE TO DO IT.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean out old Fellows who just write policy....and get true people knowledgeable in 2010 innovation in their. Get rid of politics. Sell value of your Graduates...not your soul for international travel.

Pros

There is a large degree of flexibility in both home life and professional development. I enjoy the relaxed environment. You also get good benefits and free bus use.

Cons

Limited career development opportunities. Many departments are very heavy on middle management, but most of these positions are superfluous and are not refilled when the person occupying them leaves.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire better middle managers. You do not need to be the most knowledgeable in a field to be a good manager, but I cannot for the life of me understand how much time spent at UT or a graduate degree in an unrelated field will eclipse experience here.

Pros

Very casual. Relaxed with your work schedule. Friendly and youthful demographic

Cons

Lots of older staff who refuse to learn new technology and hinder the growth of the departments

Advice to Senior Management

Be aware of staff who are BSing their way through their job. There could be someone out there who could easily do their job and another with no problems.

Pros

Austin-- such a wonderful place to live, this is probably far and away the most convincing reason.
World Class Faculty-- not just a tag line, UT has the funds to attract the very best.
Reasonable compensation scheme.

Cons

Funding Issues-- it seems that they continue to face funding issues and choose to bundle money to attract big name scholars instead of keeping staff.
Benefits are not that great.

Advice to Senior Management

Make choices that prioritize staff, there are thousands of us and hiring one or two senior faculty members should not be done at the cost of many many staff jobs. Great staff are part of what makes UT great.

Pros

Very friendly co-workers
Laid-back environment
Less stressful, less peer pressure
Center of happenings at Austin and reasonable compensation with good benefits

Cons

May not get satisfactory recognition of your good work. Hard to excel in this big school with ~30000 employes.
Salary is lower than many other schools

Advice to Senior Management

Please provide compettive salary and improve work environment by rewarding people

Pros

Excellent resources and facilities with competitive faculty. Laid back atmosphere to keep things less intense than other universities. Good place to settle in and accomplish scientific goals.

Cons

Parking, parking, parking! Must park 6 blocks from campus every morning. Too many undergrads and students everywhere. A little too laid back sometimes, people not always ambitious.

Advice to Senior Management

Become more selective with admissions, too many students are accepted that clearly do not belong at a high ranked national university.

Pros

Working for UT as a graduate research assistant provides a great opportunity to be involved with cutting edge research. The research programs at UT have significant funding compared to other universities.

Cons

The downsides of working at UT are minimal. Being a state university the pay is standard with other government jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

The managment at UT can be absent at times, especially with various research programs. When you are working and managing a group of researchers it can feel like hurding cats.

Pros

Employee benefits are fantastic, campus is gorgeous, wonderful central location, employee discounts throughout Austin

Cons

No employee raises for last 2 years (except for Mack Brown receiving $5 million plus bonuses) despite football team raising over 150 million dollars this last season.

Advice to Senior Management

You have over 70,000 good (generally) employees who keep the entire UT system running; why not give them a raise?

Pros

Flexible working hours
Interactive with students frequently
Enhance teaching and learning experience

Cons

Close to none. Lazy students are hard to work with sometimes since they want to know the answers for their homework which is due in 30 minutes rather than understanding the materials.

Advice to Senior Management

Leading a small group of people on learning textbook topics are quite fun, but make sure you have cover the topic from ground up since people come into the learning center have different background.