graduate researcher

research assistant

assistant professor

administrative assistant

graduate assistant

Penn State University

Working as a research assistant at Penn State University offers a highly rewarding experience, particularly for those pursuing academic growth and professional development in a research-driven environment. Here’s an overview of the key aspects:

Pros:
Access to World-Class Facilities:

Penn State provides access to cutting-edge labs, equipment, and technology, fostering innovation across disciplines. Resources like the Materials Characterization Lab and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences elevate the research experience.
Diverse Research Opportunities:

With its status as a major research university, Penn State hosts a wide variety of projects in fields like engineering, chemistry, life sciences, and social sciences. This diversity enables assistants to work on groundbreaking projects aligned with their academic interests.
Supportive Mentorship:

Faculty advisors and principal investigators (PIs) often serve as mentors, offering valuable guidance for conducting research, publishing papers, and preparing for academic or industry careers.
Collaborative Environment:

The interdisciplinary nature of research at Penn State encourages collaboration between departments, allowing assistants to learn from peers and experts from diverse fields.
Professional Development:

Research assistants frequently gain experience in technical skills, critical thinking, data analysis, and scientific communication—skills highly transferable to both academic and industry careers.
Funding Opportunities:

Many research assistant positions are funded through grants, providing tuition remission, stipends, and healthcare benefits, which can be a financial relief for graduate students.
Networking:

Conferences, workshops, and departmental events create opportunities to connect with prominent scholars, industry professionals, and fellow researchers.
Cons:
Work-Life Balance:

Research demands can be intense, with long hours in the lab or field, tight deadlines, and high expectations. Balancing academic responsibilities and research commitments can be challenging.
Pay Disparity:

While the funding and benefits are a plus, research assistant stipends may not always match the cost of living, especially for those in State College or with significant financial obligations.
Varying Workloads:

Workload intensity often depends on the research group, project deadlines, or grant timelines, which can lead to periods of stress or burnout.
Advisor Dynamics:

The quality of the experience can heavily depend on the relationship with the faculty advisor. Clear communication and mutual respect are essential for a positive working environment.
Limited Industry Exposure:

For those focused on industry careers, some projects might feel overly academic or theoretical. However, networking and internships can help bridge this gap.

Working for Penn State Hospitality Services provided me with just the right job at the right time. The Penn Stater Hotel is a 300 room hotel located just off campus that hosts conferences throughout the year and provides accommodations during special events at Penn State such as graduation and sporting events. 

As a front desk agent I was able to learn many of the intricacies of hotel operation, learned to deal with guest issues and resolve them to the satisfaction of both the guest and the management, and acquired a respect for the support needed from all employees to keep a successful hotel running. My duties included check-in/out of guests, processing payments/refunds/making adjustments, reservations, telephone management, report review, room management, coordination with other departments, employee training, crisis management, and ensuring that every guest had a wonderful stay and experience. Our mantra - building relationships that last - was critical in our approach to guests (both internal and external) and drove our daily activities. 

The management philosophy of Penn State Hospitality Services is to empower each employee to make decisions that will provide the best customer service. Initial training included a clear explanation of limitations and stressed each employee's power to act - knowing management would support responsible decisions made helping guests much easier and helped develop repeat business. Co-workers were outstanding in helping each other when necessary and to get the job done and I have maintained a friendship with many of them.

The skills I learned at PSHS included Opera management system, telephone answering skills, customer services techniques, time management, and an understanding of the overall hotel/restaurant operations. Perhaps the most difficult and rewarding part of my job was dealing with guests and resolving issues: nothing is more rewarding than having an irate customer walk away feeling that their concerns were taken seriously and the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

Working at Penn State as a teaching professor has its ups and downs.  

Management and coworkers:
Depending on department your bosses may or may not care if you're good at your job.  I was unlucky enough to be in a group run by someone who doesn't care at all about teaching, so half of my colleagues were teaching to the exams and opposed every simple commonsense suggestion.  Their students consistently scored significantly below the mean on exams and at times they said things that made me wonder if they actually know the subject to the level they're supposed to.  Some of them had been there so long that I was told by more senior colleagues to regard them as permanent fixtures in the dept, even though several of them were contract workers who renewed every year or two.  It puzzled me that such an obvious and easy-to-fix problem was left to fester, but again this is a small part of a single department in a huge university so it's likely not representative of the whole.

I do have friends who worked under different people and had much better experiences, however.  

Culture: 
There's a lot of talk about climate and diversity, but it feels like a lot of the older faculty don't get it and at times unreasonably oppose very basic ideas.  Besides this aspect, on which the university still has some work to do, overall culture is friendly, positive, optimistic, mostly laid-back.  

Hardest Part:  
If you're the kind of person who sees problems and wants to fix them, you're not going to enjoy the endless list of "no-men" (i.e. opposite of 'yes-men') in your way to get essentially anything done.  If you're just interested in showing up to campus, working a few hours, driving home and receiving a paycheck, this is a fine place to work.

Most enjoyable part:  
It's university life.  You get tons of time to work on things you're interested in, and your classes will always be as fun/interesting as you make them.

A typical day at work includes screening potential participants for eligibility to be enrolled in studies, counseling women currently enrolled in Clinical Weight Loss Trial, and managing student workers who work in the office. 
Most of my time is spent in counseling sessions with our participants, these appointments consist of reviewing diet records, nutrition education, and collecting data points relevant to study (weight, BMI, blood pressure). We have 125 participants enrolled in the trial as of 8/2013 and are still actively recruiting. 
I work at our secondary office location with two Registered Dietitians, my supervisor is our Lab Manager who works in our primary office location. The two RDs and I share all counselling responsibilities equally. We are also responsible for any other communications with our participants including electronic communications. We are also responsible for keeping our schedule. 
The hardest part of my job is the challenges brought by each individual participant. I only have 45 minutes to 1 hour in an appointment and so I have to be able to troubleshoot their weight loss challenges quickly and individually to that participant while staying within the parameters of their assigned group set by our Principle Investigators.
The most rewarding and enjoyable part of my job is when our participants are successful in their weight loss journey. Whether it be success in terms of actual pounds lost, inches lost in their waist circumference, or better lab values.

Peer tutoring at Main campus is overall a good experience. You work in two-hour shifts, usually with two other people and when you just start you're probably only going to get one shift a week, so the time commitment is minimal. You decide when you work based on what hours you give for availability. The best time to get a shift would be between your classes, it makes your day go faster by giving you something else to do rather than sitting around waiting for your next class. If you're coming from one of the smaller campuses tutoring programs, it can be a little intimidating because a lot of the people already know each other and how it works. There are a lot more tutors than in the branch campuses. However, everyone is very nice and welcoming including the people who run it. It opens up a lot of opportunities if you let it and looks good on a resume with little work on your part. 
If you can write, enjoy helping people, and want a good resume builder I would go for it. The only downsides are that there are mandatory one hour weekly meetings that are pretty useless/boring and usually don't have much to do with tutoring, (You do get paid for showing up, however) and that there is a semester-long class you are required to take to get a position. I did not take the English 250 class that's required at main campus, so I can't comment on theirs, but if your professor recommended that you take the class, I would just take it. It's not like you're forced to tutor after taking the class, but you will want to and even if you don't, you'll learn important things about communication and writing by taking the class that you'll be able to use in your academic life, whether or not you do choose to tutor.

The EOC is a non-degree-granting research institution at The Pennsylvania State University. This is the sister organization of the larger and better established Applied Research Laboratory (ARL). The majority of work is on government funded projects from a variety of agencies, primarily DOD. Current efforts to diversify the funding base are balanced against a core DOD focus.

The management structure recently changed to a matrix organization. Both the prior and current structures result in a very flat organization with limited opportunities for internal advancement, but plenty of opportunity to take on additional responsibilities. Salary increases are governed by Penn State regulations, typically 2% per annum unless there is a significant increase in responsibility. The salaries are in line with competing university organizations, as are the benefits. The work / life balance is very family friendly.

Due to the nature of government contracting there is a strong emphasis on following regulations to the letter, with corresponding volumes of paperwork. There is a very competent group of support staff to assist with this aspect of the job, though it can still be a burden for technical personnel. The nature of project based employment combined with recent funding cuts have resulted in multiple rounds of RIFs and staffing changes. This has required the remaining personnel to cover increasingly diverse project portfolios, frequently pulling technical personnel away from their core competencies. This results in both opportunities and challenges, depending on individual strengths and preferences.

Supervise and advise resident assistant staff of 14, through bi-weekly one on one meeting, staff meetings, and formal evaluations
 Develops and designs training sessions for resident assistant’s professional development.
 Oversee all Residence Life activities including programming, community development, and conduct issues in two Residence Halls with approximately 700 first-year students
 Effectively trains and supervises FISE special living option for resident assistants and students.
 Interprets and enforces university and residence hall policies.
 Adjudicate cases and determined sanction for community standard violations.
 Provides effective basic help, counseling, and mediation to students.
 Intervene in crisis situations and roommate conflicts to ensure the safety and well-being of students
 Assume on-duty responsibilities on a rotating basis for 14 buildings and 4300 students in East Halls
 Coordinate events for East Halls Cultural Lounge to promote diversity and social justice awareness
 Maintain a programming budget of $2200
 Use ANGEL, an online course management system, to relay information and upcoming events to residents
 Assist in the recruitment and selection of potential Resident Assistants and Professional Staff
 Instructed Counselor Education 302 - prerequisite course for all prospective resident assistants.
 Served on the assessment committee, screening committee and MACHUO-SSLI committee
 Facilitated monthly fire drills in 14 building in Fall 2010

Working at Penn State Abington is difficult at best if you are an administrative assistant.  You may be supporting a department of 50-100+ persons and you will be the only administrative support for every person in that division.  The college continues to downsize its workforce and as individuals retire, they are not replaced.  That work is then added to your workload as an admin.  If you are a departmental admin, you will be tasked with paying all adjunct faculty members and any supplemental payments for your full-time faculty members (this is not included in any job description; albeit, I guess you could list this under 'other tasks as required.'), create the vast majority of all expense reports for all credit card holders in your department (which is not done at the other commonwealth campuses - only at Abington are faculty so entitled to receive full expense reporting by the admin), receive and process various payments, create, advertise, and coordinate events, run budget reports and take in contracts and assist in the procurement process, collect all syllabi in your division, track and hang signs for all faculty class cancellations in your division, the list goes on.  There is a clear lack of equity at the institution as faculty receive spring break week off while staff members are expected to conduct business as usual.  Boundaries are not respected and the work life balance due to the aforementioned workload is abysmal.

I loved working at the diversity office. We got to create social media campaigns, student-led events, posters/fliers, and bulletin boards, as well as help any students who may have come by the office itself. It was a very collaborative space and I often felt encouraged to lead.

The hours are very flexible, since management is required to work around your class schedule and often willing to work around other activities (second job, clubs, etc.) as well.  

As a student worker, my experience was different than the regular staff and faculty's experiences. There was little to no room for advancement for me personally, but most students go into their positions knowing that. 

In terms of management, my position had a program assistant and an associate director of student engagement directly above it. The program assistant was deeply involved with the peer mentors, often working in the same office and holding meetings throughout the week. The associate director was less involved, but did check in from time to time (they probably worked more with the program assistant than they did with us). 

By my final year as a mentor, both the program assistant and the associate director had moved on from their positions. The new office manager was not as attentive as their predecessors. No new peer mentors were hired when the previous one graduated, either, so all of the duties were placed on me. I'm curious to see what will happen now that I've graduated as well, since the office will be closed if they can't find new people to hire.

My time at Penn State as a student and assistant teacher was truly amazing. First off it was a complete dream to be able to get paid to act and teach at a top tier University. A typical day consisted of class in the morning, five days a week, 11to 12 hours a day. During the afternoon or early mornings, depending on the semester and how classes were scheduled,  I would teach undergraduate students the basics of Theatre. This meant I had to create a full semester syllabus, reading assignments and various group orientated activities for my students. The job really called for a flexible personality seeing as how theatre is such an abstract subject now days, I had to adapt to each student. Sprinkled on top of all this I had to perform in many Theatre productions, as was the requirements of the job. It was a truly rigorous program but very fulfilling.  

As far the management team, they were high class well renowned people from around the world. For instance, one of my professors was from London England. 

The workplace was vibrant and a bit loud at times considering all the students and just theatre folk in general. There was a lot of passion and dedication for the craft and work we were doing. 

The most enjoyable part has to be receiving my Master's Degree for Theatre and Performance.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Graduate researcher 19 salaries reported	$33,193 per year
Research assistant 53 salaries reported	$18.06 per hour
Assistant professor 7 salaries reported	$72,714 per year
Administrative assistant 106 salaries reported	$53,544 per year
Graduate assistant 6 salaries reported	$18.00 per hour

Working at Penn State University: Company Overview and Reviews

Penn State University

Penn State University Ratings

Popular jobs at Penn State University

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected