Pros
Lots of bright people to work with Plenty of project funding opportunities Good weather and outdoorsy stuff in Pasadena Endless interesting projects to work on Easy access to LA on public transit
Cons
-Poor department culture: there is a lack of feeling like you belong in the department because the department is so big and people don't socialize between research groups -People themselves are really nice but overall there is a lack of humbleness in whole. Professors have a mentality of "oh you're overworked? welcome to postdoc life". A lot of 'this is how academia is' and dumping work on grad students too -People work a lot and take on too many projects (and too many funding deadlines that are short on labor) and will sign you up to do things without asking. They rely on postdocs to do a lot of department/project tasks that shouldn't be our jobs. If you're an independent fellow, beware, you are free labor -Pasadena is super spread out, makes meeting up to socialize harder Salary of a postdoc isnt great when you consider how much we could be making in industry at the hours we work. You wont be able to afford a home in Pasadena on your salary alone, and studio or one bedroom rent prices are stressful enough -the weather rarely changes. it's weird after a while