Pros
Nice co-workers Accommodating leadership Rewarding (yet exhausting) helping students
Cons
The pay is too low after taxes for even one person to live comfortably. A person should not be living pay check to pay check while working full-time (and yes, budgeting and living within their means) at a job that requires a four year degree at the least. Benefits are not good enough to make up for this. Being a non-profit, we also don't get the nice little perks of other in-person office jobs that make coming into the office a little better. The budget is very tight, and there is not a lot of room for growth. There also aren't a lot of guidelines, so it gets chaotic and very make-it-up-as-you-go. The changing curriculum also feels like something that actively creates barriers for many of our students and pushes back graduations. Wanting to challenge them is a nice thought, but these aren't traditional students, and trying to treat them like they are just makes it take longer for them to graduate, and most of them can't afford that. They picked the Excel Center because it is an accelerated program that will get most of them better positions in the workforce quickly, not because they're trying to get into Harvard. The impact is also worse at some locations than others, depending on the population.