admission representative

instructor

student advisor

truck driver

student representative

Academy of Art University

*The most stressful job I ever had despite being one of the easiest.  

*The corporate culture is toxic and makes doing any task more difficult then it needs to be:

*The environment is loud and noisy, with little privacy.

*Competition between coworkers encouraged by management which leads to some people becoming cruel and pernicious.

*Initiative and team cooperation discouraged. 

*Toxic office politics.  Environment full of cliques and gossip.

*Little to no recognition for a job well done or advancement opportunities.

*New people are more likely to go through hazing, then to receive a cordial welcome, despite interview talk of environment being "like family" and "friendly office" by management .

*Everyone, except a few favorites, treated like chattel (disposable) by management.  No feeling of genuine job security.

*High turnover.  Good people, with skills, leave.  Incompetent people who can't get a job somewhere else, stay.

*People fired for small mistakes, when they really needed training.

*Little to no training for new employees.  People there for over a year still didn't know what their job was and admitted to me they had "no clue and were just faking it".

*Incompetent management created an "busy" environment where work was pretended by many, but not much was actually accomplished.  People spent more time talking about "all the work they had to do" (usually to the incompetent managers) rather then actually working (management encouraged this behavior).

*Manager frequently brought pets to the office despite employee allergies.

*The pay is so low that workers can't afford to live nearby, so most people had to commute. The commute was brutal (over an hour for most) and parking expensive.  The office building the university owns, has a garage but it is filled with a privately owned antique car collection rather then providing parking for the workers (who end up paying $10 an hour to park or end up with 2-3 hour more expensive commutes by ferry).

*Some of the ways we handled student financial aid seemed dubious to me.  My conscience bothered me while working and I felt relief when I left.

*Moral was obviously low.  

*Doing the actual accounting work was fine, a little dull, but fine.

Initially and against Academy of Art policy, our department was allowed a flexible schedule, use of video equipment/ facilities and company time for personal projects. This was all encouraged and embraced by management. Our direct supervisor routinely used our department's resources to purchase gear for personal freelance projects. He was aware of the sub-par compensation and used this to entice and retain our services. Despite our department wide insolence, we were a successful, innovative and rather happy group of co-workers. Many of the crew were at 10 plus years.

We often joked about the mutually assured destruction that would befall our department if management tried to terminate anyone. We were wrong. Instead, they used petty, punitive actions to punish individuals. One of their favorites was augmenting workloads to increase pressure on certain workers, while others were left completely free of work. Or implementing a strict 9 to 5 schedule, while others could come and go as they pleased. Essentially they would remove perks until all you had left was an underpaid, office job. It often worked, many quit. Some were written up and subsequently fired when the Human Resources hammer dropped on the department, brought on by one of our direct supervisor's tantrums. However, management was left standing, while employees were terminated for completely hypocritical reasons. I sided with the guys getting fired and went to HR in confidence regarding the duplicitous nature of their dismissals. I was rewarded with a warning about working on personal projects on company time. To date, I'm still employed there. Unfortunately, my contract has a 0 hour guarantee. I haven't been scheduled to work since talking to HR... They got me. That was over 4 months ago.

Like rats abandoning a sinking ship, none of the original crew is left -- save for management.

One of the most horrible places to work. Save yourself a significant portion of your life and don't bother to work at this place if you know exactly what you are getting into. A typical day was a tedious day doing thankless jobs. The training is non-existent if you recall training just being told what to do. . .   I learned how much  the school is really intended to keep you know who accumulate the money from those students who think they are getting a quality education that's more like snake oil and blood dripping from the bodies of eviscerated babies and lambs being sacrificed .  . . There is so much better schools out there, unless you want to support her collection of cars on display : I Management and some of the teachers are full of it, but they come across as pretty ugly and amusingly pathetic. Some of them act like they are working, but get their work done at the last minute to the point of stressing themselves out and then continue to watch movies during the day . . . Some of the staff in some of the departments are nice, but then there are others who come across as pretty dismissive and condescending. I wish I could name them here, but they are located in the top portion of 180 NM building. They act like you are beneath them especially if you just started and are not familiar with the ins and outs of the greedy machinations of this school. There is one director who only comes in like twice a week or none at all and acts like he owns the floor when he walks in. Please, give me a break. . . .  It's funny how he and some of the staff act like they are doing interesting and important work, when really it's insignificant in the grand scheme of the cosmos just like their malleable pea size egos and personality. The hardest part of the job was showing up to work and counting down until 5:00 pm. The most enjoyable part of the job knowing it was all going to end soon.

This position is pretty cut and dry: you troubleshoot, monitor, and maintain the labs for the school's student body.

There were many challenges, to keep one on their toes, and most of the challenges presented were technical: Getting the student's login to work with the Unity, Students having trouble with an error message, equipment breakdowns, and so on. There was also a great deal of time management involved: getting students into the labs and keeping the other students happy by enforcing scheduling terms for the lab's time. Learning the programs was part of the job, and if you were already familiar with a program, the management encouraged you to use the equipment, so long as it was for work purposes only. They also offer classes at AAU for a discounted rate if you're at least a Part-Time employee.

The staff and management in the MPT department were great to work with. All of the staff were very knowledgeable and polite, and were a fun and quirky bunch to work with. Many on the staff are young freelance professionals, and some are artists. The Management and Teachers were affable, and all were seasoned professionals, able to give quick answers and always willing to assist if there was a problem that a tech couldn't solve. All of the staff were nice people to have around.

The hardest part of the job was the sometimes late-night hours; often closing down around 1am. Though the managers took this into consideration and never scheduled someone early at 7am the next day. The job was rewarding and had plenty of breathing room, leaving a nice pace, and allowing one to approach tasks at individual and comfortable speeds.

During a typical day, I would come into work at 8am and start to check my emails and voice mails. I would respond in order of message received, while ensuring never to allow more than 24 hours to elapse without responding to messages (weekends excepted). As a financial aid representative, I had to manage a portfolio of over 1500 graduate and undergraduate students by contacting them on a weekly basis, answering any question they had, and checking with them on the status of their financial aid paperwork. I learned how to efficiently respond to messages, calls and voice mails in live time, as well as answering calls on the general financial aid help line, while staying on top of managing my portfolio of students. The management was successful in interfacing with the employees; my manager was regularly available to help if I ran into any issues. The co-workers were very friendly and the work environment was open and free. hardest part of the job was trying to reach out to students during summer break, as a number of them were on vacation. The most enjoyable part of the job was after I had contacted all of my financial aid-eligible students and succeeded in obtaining their paperwork, as I had reduced the outstanding debt for my letter group from over $250,000 to under $10,000.

Even if you are extremely desperate to find a job, do not work here! I promise that you will regret it. Poor management, poor work environment, poor health benefits, sucky pay (for SF at least) and low employee morale. Management is hostile, plays favoritism by letting some workers get away with certain things that others would not get away with (dress code, having a phone out, tardiness etc).

They are also on a power trip and are rude and incompetent. Management was promoted out of desperation because there was no one else to own up to those positions, not because they had the management skills or maturity. That would explain the power trip. Folks are just happy to be in power, meanwhile lacking the maturity, leadership skills, communication skills, and integrity. Other employees were cool, but management and the HR Department here is full of s*** and known to be shady.

If you do decide to work here, I advise that you not take it seriously and to keep applying to other places until something better comes along.

During my 2+ years there, there were some flexibility in scheduling but such a high turnover rate that it's hard to build a good connection with coworkers.  Every semester or two, people will get replaced or leave the job because there are no benefits offered with contract work.  Though I worked over summer and winter, many others did not get to.  
I was also told that they will not give it job references, only verification of time worked.  While they offer one free course at the academy each semester, it is really tough to work it around the work schedule...I was also told that you may not attend any other courses outside of the academy while working there.  While many students were pleasant and understood the fact that things were always slow because of the understaffing, many were not.  Chronic understaffing made for a bad work environment and it was one of the reasons I left.  And I mean that over my two years there, only the first semester had enough staff.  All the others were cut in half or even down to a quarter at times.  Even had people from other departments come assist.

Focus is on money and not on students. If enrollment is down, positions are eliminated (which trickles down to lack of staff and support services for students--making it impossible to do your job), additional work is foisted on to those who are already underpaid. Full time instructors and department heads are at full capacity with teaching loads and are rarely given sufficient time (or pay) to meet with students, grade work, submit grades, or do any required administrative work outside of the classroom. Most staff have not received a pay increase in several YEARS. All decisions go through one person (the President), and decisions are often knee-jerk to fix problems. Decisions are never preventative. Once decisions are made, there's rarely enough time to execute them correctly before they are scrapped and new decisions are implemented. Everyone is in "scramble" mode to put out fires constantly. Recognition is rarely given and the left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. Job security feels VERY unstable and  everyone works in fear that they are next to get the dreaded call from HR.

In the financial aid department, the workdays were anything but typical.  Straying away from the industry standard, they implemented an open door policy.  Students did not have to make an appointment to come into the office and discuss their financial aid file.  All reps had their own alpha split but if you did not have a student in your cubicle, and one walked in, you were to see them.  This created an awesome team environment where you serviced all students the same...with enthusiasm and effectively serviced their needs.  It also created an atmosphere of communication between representatives just due to the fact that you had to make sure that you peers knew their student came in and what you did to help them.

They also had Student Accounts, Admissions Advisors, and Financial Aid representatives all on the same building on the same floor.  Open floor seating style.  With all three departments working hand in hand and playing a vital role in a students success...it was fantastic for the left hand to know what the right hand was doing. 

Amazing school and people!

most buildings occupied by the University were historical but ours did not have heating. The students and faculty were always cold when the weather was cold. Walking through the Tenderloin was not enjoyable with the stench of human waste or mentally ill locals would grab or yell for you across the way. You definitely have to wash your hands upon arrival to work or anytime you leave the building. The faculty spoke harshly against one another to new staff which made it hard to get to know people for just who they are and not based on what someone else says. There was no team work. Therefore, you are left to find your way. My boss had an affair with one of his students before I started so not only was I hearing the hostile communications between staff, but I was getting calls from a bi-polar heart-broken student who was stalking my boss from afar. My boss did alert security but it was just way too much drama for any professional who is there to do a great job in hopes to further their future within the company.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Admission representative 5 salaries reported	$61,624 per year
Instructor 5 salaries reported	$53.20 per hour
Student advisor 4 salaries reported	$59,250 per year
Truck driver 4 salaries reported	$28.00 per hour
Student representative 6 salaries reported	$24.04 per hour

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