student assistant

graduate assistant

graduate researcher

research assistant

instructor

Texas Tech University

At the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, I have the opportunity to explore the excellent facilities of the departments under the guidance of expert faculty members using the latest cutting edge technologies. Lab exposure during the doctoral study was helpful for me to fine tune my research interest towards dissertation. The reason for selecting this school for my further study is multifaceted. First of all, at this school I found the perfect match of my research interest in different laboratories
     Secondly, the graduate program is lead by internationally reputed faculties, which provided me with the basic knowledge and academic skills in addition to preparing me for carrying creative and independent research work in my specialized area. The infrastructure and ready access to a variety of research facilities supported to carry out my doctoral level research program suitably at the competitive levels. Thirdly, high academic reputation and nationwide ranking of this institute with significant research publications in reputed journals, research funding from internationally recognized organization like NIH provided me with a high level research environment. The interaction with a variety of international research students aided in synthesizing new ideas. Finally, I believe that the guidance of an internationally reputed faculty during my doctoral study helped me to become a successful researcher to solve many biological puzzles.
     The laboratory where I have worked as a doctoral student provided me with various learning environments. I feel proud to be in the research group where I am currently working. The laboratory environment never makes me feel lonely and I enjoy discussing scientific ideas with my peers. 
    With all these broad interests and specific goals, I am very much glad to be the graduate student of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. I believe that it is the best place for anyone to flourish and to achieve my goals. I am confident that my patience and perseverance through many disappointments and small triumphs, my abundant curiosity and my commitment to research work have merited me as a successful scientist at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. I have the vision and the potential to make you proud as an employee.

My experience at TT, which I will be the first to say may not be representative of every employee's experience or every department, was hands down the WORST of any job I've ever had in academia. The HR department was so dysfunctional they almost seemed to revel in not doing their job, and I suspect some of their activities were borderline illegal. The culture in Lubbock and even on campus was unwelcoming, and sometimes downright hostile.

I had to take a personal loan just to pay my bills the first few months I was there, because I didn't see my first paycheck until well over 2 months after I started. This wasn't an oversight, it was standard policy. HR informed all new employees during orientation that we wouldn't be paid for almost 3 months, and had to wait until open enrollment to apply for benefits. And this wasn't because we were in a 90 day 'trial period', at least not in my case. Despite taking a new job being a standard 'life event' that qualifies employees to enroll in benefits outside the open enrollment period, I had to wait almost 4 months before I could enroll and use my health insurance benefits, meaning I went several months without necessary medication and healthcare. Both the salary and benefits package left a lot to be desired.
 
HR, faculty and staff members at Texas Tech did little to help new employees transition and feel welcome. Even as a grad student, I was accustomed to being invited to social events to get to know faculty members, as well as lectures, seminars, and other professional events. I expected to at least being given some kind of guidance or a quick tour of the buildings I'd be working in. Maybe this is common practice for some new employees at TT, but it was not for me.  

I tip my hat to anyone combating this bigotry at Texas Tech, or anyone who wants to try and clean up their dysfunctional HR department and a variety of other problems, but I don't mind telling you I got the H-e-double hockeysticks out of there as soon as I could, and never looked back.

My typical day at work is and to say the very least, is overwhelmingly awful. First of all, my workload is overpowering. I have to see as many as 18 to over 20 people a day. I am expected to do and before seeing the patients, a  complete and thorough chart review on that many people. Second I am expected to see the patients in a hostile and often times dangerous environment. I have to contend with the noise, the belligerent population and do quality mental health evaluations and chart on them the same day. Coupled with me being the sole person in my department while other departments have adequate staffing.  What I have learned is how not to be and that mid -level management is not to be trusted. On one occasion I was asked to participate in training only to be met with two mid level managers and written up. As far as the true purpose of that meeting, I was lied to. Another incident I learned that the mid-level manager was discussing my job performance with a person not involved.  I was also told to seek managerial guidance when needed only to have it harshly criticized for it. The mid-level manager has a flippant, dismissive attitude and seems to shrug off job related issues. Recently, I was written up for a mistake that I thought resolved  and before that written up for something that occurred two years earlier. As far as the workplace culture is concerned, most of my peers are great to work with. The hardest part of my job and like I said earlier, is their overwhelming demands with no help while other departments have adequate staffing. Nothing is enjoyable about my job and patient encounters are therapeutically meaningless.

It depends on who you work for. Some supervisors are nice and great to work for. Others let their positions of authority go to their heads and they treat everyone under them horrible. My last supervisor just lied and lied and made up all kinds of things about me being a horrible employee, blaming things that the professors did on me. She also documented all of her lies so that after she fired me, one week after my grandmother's funeral, she was able to prevent me from getting unemployment. This department is no longer the same department, it was NHR. 

As I said, there are some people who are great to work for and make going to work enjoyable. But the wrong people make everyone around them miserable. I still wished that I worked for HDFS but an employee was hired and she was unbelievable horrible and she ran off the entire clerical staff before moving on to another department to be horrible there as well. She made everyone completely miserable. 

I had some great supervisors in the University Library and some that were horrible. And a co-worker who was also a pain but not nearly as bad as the co-worker in HDFS. So you just never know about who you are going to end up working for, a monster or a sweet person. My last boss in NHR, they seemed to encourage and reward horrible behavior, including the Dean's office of COHS. Extremely pathetic, they are the college of Human Sciences and it was the Hospitality department that was my worst nightmare.

An ever-fluctuating workload, flexible management, and a tumultuous work/life schedule make working for Texas Tech Univ. Housing both good and bad.

The pay is measly considering the amount of work done - if American schools were set up like Scandinavian schools, I wouldn't complain as much.

The coworkers, like any workplace, are a colorful melting pot of friendly faces and backstabbing. You love some, you hate some.

Bosses are fair and well-picked by upper management echelons. This is as good a reason as any to want to go back to work for TTU.

The work itself varies wildly. Work schedules change constantly, meetings are called for at odd hours, events are planned in advance and with preparation, but there is little incentive to have a desired percentage of your residents attend your events.

Unless you live in the newest residence halls, most other community advisor rooms are small. Living in a room by yourself is nice, as is having friendly housekeepers, but efficiency living is not fun unless you are manically optimistic.

For a poor college student, it's the best non-benefits job you can get outside of a major-specific internship with a reputable company.

3 out of 5 stars. If the pay was MUCH better and if expected work hours were more regular (no unnecessary graveyard shifts), then there would be two more stars added.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Tech is a good place for faculty--not great, but good. I would never work their as staff, though. The pay for staffers is really low, so you end up working with people who frankly aren't that bright. If you want to get anything done at Tech, expect to make multiple calls and have to do everything yourself. I worked there over ten years, and I think there was one person who ever said, "Let me see how I can help and get back to you." It's a fine place to work if you're an extreme self-starter, but if you want collegiality or helpfulness, go elsewhere. As faculty, it was fine. It got worse as our leadership changed the last nine years, but the first ten were great. And Tech is obviously in Texas, so I don't need to tell you how much of a culture war is going on in academia. If I taught anything to do with human rights, anything other than something straight technical, I wouldn't move to Texas right now. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Every year the students do less and the faculty do more. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Eh it's ok. 90% of the time anything admin wants you to do is busywork, but I'm not sure that's restricted to Tech or academia.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Typical day of a prof. 2/2 load, which is nice. What seemed to me to be too much evaluation of peers, but that's probably me.

On a typical day at work, I am sitting in an office without windows in the back of our call center. My main interaction with other people is via phone, and I rarely see or interact with my coworkers. I enjoy speaking to and helping my customers, and I am always willing to serve them and research their difficulties. I have learned a lot of patience and have become more self-sufficient. I work on the knowledge base and keep work orders up to date when customers are not calling. 

My management will sporadically try to micro-manage, when for the first few months they chose to not give me any direction or training at all, save for listening to some phone conversations with my coworkers. My management also tends to be very loud and interrupts my phone conversations with customers frequently. This becomes stressful and disrupts the call center greatly.

My co-workers are far more knowledgeable than most of the management and are able to answer my questions and are always willing to assist me and brainstorm with me. 

The hardest part of the job is simply getting the day started. After the first call comes in, my job becomes enjoyable. I work and solve problems with my customers and I enjoy helping them.

I work as Graduate Assistant helping the Director of Research Programming in the Vice President of Research Office.

I use Business Intelligence tool IBM cognos for reporting and analyzing research metrics for the university.

I am responsible for ad-hoc report generation either using SQL Developer/ MS Access/ IBM Cognos.

I also need to create and modify reports. I use Oracle Report Builder for achieving this.

Apart from this, I am also responsible for handling the Internal Web Application which is based on Java. I need to develop and maintain the application. The toughest part of my job is to respond as quickly as possible and resolve the issues related to the reports and web application in short span since the application is highly needed by various faculty members and Research department staff for generating reports and Letters.

I have proposed an idea to handle huge amount of data anticipating the future demand. Standard RDBMS to NoSQL migration for better results. This is a pilot project and I am solely responsible for it.

My co-workers are very friendly and helping supporting my education with scholarship.

The was a terrible place to work. Had I known how terrible it would have been I would have stayed at my last job. This job is really a low paying job I found out. When my supervisor informed me that I was being over paid she immediately found every way to get rid of me. The supervisor in this department has little to no knowledge of what to do in this department. Overall this was the un-liked position I have ever had, you don't make any money here because you have to take in-part in the teachers retirement and your checks here are worse than a fast food worker. Texas Tech has all this money and cant afford to pay its employees. Overall if you are applying for the position of Student Specialist III. Trust me you aren't a specialist your the work horse so the management can spend time painting their nails, post their status on social media. Your better off working in fast food. Save your time in applying here because your coming in as entry level so everyone above you gets better personal days off, sick days off and vacation days off. Do not work in this department.

This job did not have any kind of "typical work day." We did not work 5 days a week. Our work schedules were very diverse depending on what was needed and what interns were available. This job taught me the value of teamwork and how important it is to work together to perform certain tasks. The interns worked for many of the athletic personnel in the office, all of which were very welcoming, informative and helpful when it came to teaching and explaining different job assignments. There were only a handful of us interns so we were all very close and became great friends. The hardest part of this job was constantly changing what your task was. One minute you were passing out flyers, the next minute you were doing half time at the basketball game. You had to be totally focused at all times to know what your task was and how to perform it well. The best part of this job was getting to know all of the coaches and athletes of all the sports. It was always a great feeling watching your team succeed.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Student assistant 14 salaries reported	$11.54 per hour
Graduate assistant 3 salaries reported	$15.67 per hour
Graduate researcher 9 salaries reported	$27,178 per year
Research assistant 6 salaries reported	$27,500 per year
Instructor 4 salaries reported	$32,375 per year

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