graduate researcher

student assistant

research assistant

teaching assistant

graduate assistant

The Ohio State University

I thought that this position would be an excellent fit and I was very excited to start. I could not have been more wrong. I am currently a student returning to pursue a medical specialization and wanted to work in a job related to the field while utilizing OSU's tuition benefit (10 credit hours for free per semester). During my interview, I was upfront about school and flexibility being a priority for me. No problem, I was assured it would not be an issue. I started the position and people initially seemed very kind and helpful. I was assured everyone was here to help me succeed, etc. I immediately started a lengthy training process, probably 3-4 weeks. I was told that I was "the first employee they had ever trained this way" multiple times, and it was often difficult to contextualize the training, as I did not understand the full scope of my position yet. Following my training, I was put with my department to train and learn more. It was initially positive, but quickly turned hostile when I was slower or had more questions than employees who had been in the role for years. My manager was little help, as they were never present on my floor. Generally, there was also very little work for me to do. I was left to perform mostly administrative tasks rather than the duties I thought I would be performing. At my 90 day performance review, I was blindsided by extremely negative, one-sided feedback. I was criticized for "work avoidance" or for not performing aspects of the job that were either not described, I was not trained on, or that my coworkers did not allow me to perform. Many of the more specific duties of the job were delegated to my coworkers to explain and train me on, and that simply never happened. I offered my side of the story and was told that I didn't "show enough initiative" and that I should have insisted to my coworkers that they train me on things or insist that I perform certain responsibilities. I do not know who would behave in that manner at a new job and step on the toes of your superiors and fellow employees. HR was present, and I was essentially threatened and I was "reminded" that my tuition benefit, along with other benefits would cease and that I could be terminated. For my first 90 days, I received no feedback on ANY aspect of my job. It was incredibly shocking, hostile, and hurtful to be cornered by my manager and HR.

I have given it a solid month after that and nothing changed. I tried to insert myself and be proactive, but nothing helped. I was also told that I would have support and "goal setting" moving forward, but absolutely none of that has happened either. I feel as though I have been dropped by management. I honestly think this was an attempt to get me to quit, as they discovered there was not enough for another person to do on the team. It is incredibly evident that management plays favorites, and based on my review, rewards gossiping and cliques in the workplace. The negativity every day has really gotten to me and I find myself wondering what gossip goes behind my back to my manager or what small mistake could lead to termination. I am currently looking for other work, and am open to just about anything to get out of this situation. As an undergraduate, I worked in dining all four years and worked as a trainer for new employees. I have loved this university and giving back as much as I could. This job has totally changed that for me. The negativity and insecurity had such an impact on my mental health that became impossible to overlook. This position has also made me question my future graduate school decision, and I will likely go elsewhere instead. The amount of red tape surrounding this position is also exhausting; as an employee you have very little opportunity to actually make a difference or genuinely help anyone. It is also frowned upon to use any sick time or any other time off of work. You get 4 "occurrences" for 6 months, defined as missing work for any reason. In a job so mentally taxing, you would think there would be greater flexibility in the event of needing a mental health day or having other issues come up.

All this said: I really enjoyed working with the doctors and students that I did. They were all amazing and talented, genuinely interested in the best outcomes for those they worked with. I loved this aspect. The professionalism, levels of empathy, and genuine care exhibited by them was inspiring. This is the one part that I will really miss once I am gone.

The Medical Center Security Department is very low staffed, the supervisors and upper management would watch you on cameras and call you if they seen something that they didn't like. The director, and one of the assistant director has monitors in their office and they watch you when you are at the metal detector, and other places within the hospital. If you aren't in the "click" you won't get promoted, and you will be wrote up for everything. YOU WILL be mandated (held over to work over time) almost every other day. You can denied the mandation, however you will get wrote up and you won't get a pay raise for that year (pay raise is only 2% of your base pay). So many of the officers are looking for other jobs, The mandation is only going to get worse. There have been so many officers who have been hired and have worked maybe a month then quit. 
Management doesn't have your back, they are only in it for their selves or their friends. 
They went as far as to create another assistant director for a person that can back from medical leave. Now he sits in the office and watches the monitors to see what the officers are doing. That's not what that department needs.They need to have a better management team, one who will back up their officers and ones that won't always be worried and try to find things on officers to write them up. The department and the management needs to be investigated by HR or an outside firm. 
They try to mess with your military leave, and  vacation request are denied for certain people within the department. If you say anything about a union they will find anything to fire you. Your lunches are not paid, however you can't leave the hospital, and you are required to respond to any emergency call that there is. You might get to go back to your lunch if its not too busy. When you write a report, they will change it to make it sound good, people who weren't on the call even do this. My question is, how do they know what happened? In my opinion there are other security companies that pay more, with a lot less stress. Within two years This department has lost around 15-20 people if not more.
This department is not recommended if you are going to school or if you want to go to school. However they do have student security, the only thing that they do is sit outside and help people in wheelchairs, or give directions, or check buildings to make sure things are fine. They are not permitted to respond to emergency calls, or unruly persons. 

Not worth the hassle for the low pay!

The Ohio State University is poorly managed with most exploitative work culture with least benefits and salary. There are many faculties who specifically employ graduate students and postdocs from countries like China, India, Korea, east Europe etc, only to exploit them with minimum salary, least benefits, no paid holiday and inhuman work culture to destroy family life. It seems that the university has a policy to offer "visiting research scientist" designation (than proper "postdoctoral researcher" or "postdoctoral fellow") to avoid paying some of the benefits (e.g. healthcare) and better visa (e.g. H1B) for foreign nationals. OSU does not follow the NIH guidelines for minimum salary, benefits and avoid providing career advancing counselling/avenues. There is not a single day paid leave allowed for its postdoctoral staff (all designations in that category included). All such leaves are arranged on the basis of mutual understanding between the supervisor and the staff. The university is very reluctant to cooperate to get H1B visa and later green card to enable foreign researchers to get a decent employment in US, manly in private sector.

The Ohio State University does not have transparent and ethical guidelines, as per NIH (which is followed by decent US universities) to address allegations against its faculties involving intellectual property and scientific misconduct, particularly if the faculty is well-connected. After working there for sometimes, now I doubt integrity of data in research publications coming out from some of the labs/faculties (even high profile ones). There is an office of research integrity and ethics, but that is nothing but a farce. If you trust it, you would land in worse trouble.

Quality of supervisors (as a scientist, teacher and as a person) are too poor. Many of them hardly have any desire and/or ability to mentor young students and researchers. Too busy to exploit these young, sometimes very talented students/postdocs for their own career, which is far too common in most of the American universities though. University authority actively support this exploitation.

You want to know what it's like to have ten nurses sitting around on Facebook at a nursing station barking commands at you at the same time while your covered in multiple bodily fluids and haven't had time to sit down in 10 hours? How about being the only PCA for an entire unit of twenty-something patients because of "short staffing".Then this is the job for you! You get "free tuition" working at OSU however that doesn't include your lab fees, books, application fees and various other charges. Once you get done paying all that it's still cheaper to go to some other college! You want to further your education but not pay the high cost of attending OSU? Well too bad because they will give you absolutely nothing to go anywhere else for school. School\ work life balance? Forget about that because you have a form to fill out showing your school hours and you will be expected to be available ALL other hours. You will also pay to park anywhere on campus however good luck getting a spot any other time than shift change because they built an entire new 21 floor hospital but added no new employee parking. In fact they are planning on deleting existing parking spaces too build a park. During the interview they will tell you they will work around your school hours and are very flexible but after your hired and they know they got you on the hook, they like to use the line that "patient care comes first" to justify just about anything...well of course it does once you punch the clock but most if not all PCA's are pca's because they are in nursing school! Wana drop some hours because school is getting harder? Nope. Wana switch from days to nights or nights to days? Nope. Wana ever have fully staffed units instead of treating people like garbage so decent ones leave? obviously not...They will be happy to remind you however they get over 1000 applicants for each vacant position so if you don't like it your welcome to leave. For the people that have the absolute most contact with patients you'd think a multi-billion dollar organization could do a little better.

As project coordinator for a longitudinal research project, I had a variety of opportunities and responsibilities. I supervised a team of research assistants, was responsible for the choice of instruments to measure outcomes, working within the professional community to build a representative subject base, conducted clinical interviews, analyzed data that was then used to write manuscripts and present at national conferences. Because of these various responsibilities, every day was different and depended upon the phase of the project and the need to coordinate all aspects of the research process.

I learned a lot about managing people, dealing with periodic problems. It's fulfilling to supervise graduate students who were self-motivated and open to learning research skills. It also afforded me the experience of overseeing different phases of a project, all of which contained varied research activities.

I enjoyed the immediate collegial interaction with faculty members, along with the opportunity to do scholarly work in a university environment. I found that forming relationships with subjects was a refreshing balance to the more tedious duties associated with data collection, coding and analysis. The project allowed for me to attend outstanding conferences and stay abreast of the cutting edge of the literature - as well as meeting other professionals from around the country.

The most difficult part of the job was making periodic reports to NIMH, who were funding the project. These reports and the concomitant paperwork could be very exacting and demand a great amount of detail and precision.

The director I last worked for was a difficult task master, providing limited (specific) information for assignments.  It was necessary to constantly ask for additional information in order to complete assignment(s).  

I did however, enjoy working at The Ohio State University for my majority of my years there.  It is similar to a small city with many different departments that rely upon each other, and provide service to all, in order to accomplish general tasks.

Overall, it is an above average employer.  Most of my time was spent in the Medical Center.  The only word to describe it is "huge".  It takes new employees time to orient themselves as to where things, people and various departments are.  You can always tell the new employees, as they are walking carefully, and with a "deer in the headlights" look on their faces.  I can't the numerous times I would just stop someone and ask them where they wanted to go, and they would be amazed that I knew they were lost.  They were appreciative of my help, by their thankful comments.

The Medical Center is very good at providing continuing education.  Some of the other colleges are not, and that can create stagnation in forward progress of employees.  The cost of employee continuing education should never  be put up against the cost of progress.

Like all medical education centers, there were some physicians with larger than life egos.  They were mostly the older physicians, and one by one were being forced out, as they were also resistant to change. 

Ohio State itself has grown by leaps and bounds over the years that I was there, and will continue to do so.  Although, in the future, funding for such expansion projects may be more difficult to acquire.  This will lead them to develop more imaginative financing.

I wish I could say positive things about my present job; I really do.  However, the reality is otherwise.  As an open-admissions regional campus, OSU-Newark draws its students solidly from the third and fourth quartiles, with an occasional second-quartile student thrown in as a tease.  With some honorable exceptions, they can't read, can't write, can't think, can't retain information, and are curious about absolutely nothing.  This makes teaching a considerable challenge; I will say that firing the imagination, intellect, and creativity of the top students is of course incredibly satisfying when it does occur, but the groundwork for that to happen consistently is simply absent.
     On the other side, administration, I believe the operative term is "anarcho-tyranny."  There are rules for all sorts of trivial matters, but the administration makes up policy about important issues on the fly, and woe betide you if you make a mistake.  There are forms and procedures galore, but management has forgotten that these exist for the convenience of employees, and not the other way around.
     Finally, the entire campus is smothered in fictions which very few people dare acknowledge as such.  For example, our official slogan is "Excellence moving to eminence."  Sorry.  As a proud Cornellian, twice, I've not only been lucky enough to have seen excellence, but to have been embedded in it.  A better slogan would be something like "Moving from utter hopelessness to occasional competence."  Second, management likes to create the impression that OSU-Newark is a bottom-up organization, responsive to the needs and feelings of labor.  Nothing could be further from the truth; it is absolutely a top-down organization, and consequently not a very enjoyable place to work.

OSU Culture is contagious! Everyday I feel like we are making a difference and that I am a part of the fight to cure cancer!

Management- Wonderful human beings that care about you and your life, the job they do and the job that you do! I also feel that they believe in their teams and their abilities. This is the best professional environment to grow!

Growth- There are places to work in a hospital network even when you're not clinical. There are jobs- great jobs, great potential, but you need experience because it is very competitive. OSU is a great place to work and build a career, but be warned, if you want to make a substantial jump in pay for service- get another job! (within or outside of OSU) Don't expect to move before 1 year in your current position.

Benefits-Amazing Benefits( limited to OSU sites however- con) Also, there are several deductions for retirement and insurance- State retirement deductions are mandatory!- Great insurance/benefits packages, but be careful on your $election$! They add up Quickly!

Parking- Is interesting (not in a good way). You pay for your own parking and it will vary based on where you work. So essentially, you are paying to go to work. OSU is not alone - there are a lot of companies that require this- it's just not for me.

Training- Unmatched! It is unbelievable how prepared you are when you complete training. This is the most detailed and job tailored training I have received in my professional career. Everyone is extremely knowledgeable, helpful and resourceful.

There are several reasons to work at The Ohio State University-more than I can mention here! I encourage you to apply ! I feel safe and prepared working here. We are all making a difference in every department to aid in the fight against cancer!

Work here to make a difference!

Once upon a time (a decade ago), OSU was a great place to work in almost every department, college, and unit.

When I first arrived from the corporate world, I thought a bit of business sense could help it operate more efficiently and effectively. However, I should have been careful what I hoped for.

The slash and burn, burn-'em-out and churn-'em-out philosophy/strategy I saw used by so many businesses (to maximize profits on the back of 20somethings who'd work 100 hours per week for some piddly salary and then be tossed aside by the time they're 35 or 40) has been brought in as a "business as usual" strategy to use in some departments. The IT division is one where this has especially been true since a Wexner buddy from The Limited was brought in to run things there. You'll find very few people left with 15+ years experience there now (especially those 45+ in age).

The Work-Life Balance programs that have been created and touted in recruitment efforts are hollow promises in many cases. Ask for some flex time or flex place arrangement and you may find something as accommodating as the new CEO at Yahoo.com.

Benefits have quickly been eroded. Co-pays have increased quickly. In one year, the cost of brand name drugs jumped almost 400%.

Retirement benefits remain appealing. But the chances you'll last the 30 or more years needed within OPERS and/or STRS is doubtful as employees are now so "disposable" in many units.

Be careful to join a unit where academics are a main part of the mission ... avoid those where you're likely to be outsourced or sold off --- the way the bookstore and parking operation were.

A typical day at work for myself consists of dispatching security, alarm access, and CCTV. Under OSU's ownership, there are nearly 3,000 cameras located around the main campus, medical center, gateway, and surrounding campuses. 
I have learned many different operating systems such as Genetec (cemera system), Lenel, (alarm system), CAD (dispatch), and the AVM Database, which is a program which enables employees such as myself to keep tabs on the whereabouts of officers as well as any contractors working on campus. 
Management within the Department of Public Safety has come a long way. Recently, we have attempted to revamp our scheduling, training, and competence in response tactics. 
Co-workers strive to make the workplace a second home, since most time spent outside of everyone's private lives are spent here. Everyone brings something different to the table, but we have learned to communicate in a a highly effective way. 
The most difficult part of my job is balancing my work with my social life. Working mostly evenings and nights on weekends was difficult while in school. Now out of school, it is a bit easier. However, juggling the want for a social life as well as financial security is often times troubling. 
The most enjoyable part of the job is two-fold. First, the dynamic of how unique all of my coworkers are, and the aura each day when I arrive at work. Every day, no matter who is working, I am excited to come into work and converse with the people in the room. Secondly, I love the investigations aspect of my job. Helping police officers and detectives with their cases gives me a great sense of satisfaction.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Graduate researcher 24 salaries reported	$30,771 per year
Student assistant 23 salaries reported	$13.52 per hour
Research assistant 6 salaries reported	$42,667 per year
Teaching assistant 19 salaries reported	$13.47 per hour
Graduate assistant 5 salaries reported	$27,581 per year

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