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Northwestern University

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Good benefits, fair treatment of post docs. - Postdoctoral Fellow Northwestern University Employee Review

4.0
Dec 4, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits, fair treatment of post docs. Northwestern's name recognition is extraordinary-- everyone in the Chicago area seems to respect Northwestern. In my particular field, NU's reputation is strong, and I've found that this can open doors. After one year many postdocs qualify for retirement benefits. Health, vision, and dental benefits also seem pretty reasonable. Not great, but the situation could be much worse for postdocs. This will all vary by your field, department, and lab, but my boss is reasonable. I'm pushed to complete my work, but my boss understands balance. Depending on which department you're, you might be able to take advantage of excellent job-hunting resources offered to postdocs. Northwestern does a pretty good job of preparing it's post docs for the next step. You wouldn't want to work here as a postdoc forever, but for 1-4 years, you could do a lot worse. With any luck, you'll leave with a great set of skills and contacts, as well as the Northwestern name on your CV. There are plenty of cons (see below), but if you're looking for a job for a few years, you don' t have lofty academic goals, and you still like ramen noodles, Northwestern is a decent place to be.

Cons

These cons are specific to my experience as a postdoc in one of the physical sciences. My work is almost 100% research, and at NU it's impossible to build any momentum. As soon as my experiments start working, I seem to have to stop work to deal with: (1) bureaucratic hurdles or (2) instruments that are broken or too heavily booked. Work that can take days at other universities can take weeks or months here. The bureaucratic hurdles mean that ordering lab supplies is a nightmare-- it can take a week (or more) to place an order, and after the package is delivered to campus it can take days to receive it. As for instrument time, if you use shared equipment you might find that you need to book time more than one week in advance. It can take weeks to shift gears if your goals change suddenly. I find myself plodding along when I'm dying to sprint. If you're a "slow and steady" type, or you relish filling out forms, this could be the place for you! There's lots of good stuff about Northwestern (see above), but I find that the expectations here are quite high, and the resources available make reaching those expectations almost impossible. These cons are particular my particular physical science.

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5.0
Jul 7, 2026
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Pros

- Good opportunities - Campus accommodations are nice

Cons

- Underpay - $4000 for eight week full time research (40 hrs/week)

4.0
Jul 6, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

It's steady and stable money. Coworkers can be great, and benefits can be good**

Cons

They recently changed all of the benefits due to the government administration pulling federal funding. They changed from Blue Cross Blue Shield to United so the insurance is pretty bad now, with higher premiums and higher copays. You get a 90% discount on tuition, yet also about 97% of the graduate programs are when you'd be working during a 9-5. So it's nearly impossible to actually utilize your tuition discount. There were a lot of budget cuts, and 3% bonuses were one of the first to go. Your base pay is usually underpaid because it's higher education/nonprofit, and the 3% raise is barely enough to cover the rise of cost of living. So now it's underpaid, bad or unusable benefits, and low morale because there were also so many layoffs with the rest of the employees having to do the work of multiple people. Systems in the university are antiquated and it takes forever for anything to get done and most of it is trial and error. They say there is mobility, but it's only lateral if you're lucky. I've been here for two years and there's been such high turnover in senior management including the President that everything feels up in the air.

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