Great place to get your PhD, but need to deal with a large bureaucracy - Graduate Student Researcher UCLA Employee Review

3.0
Nov 8, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Working as a researcher at UCLA comes with the many pros of working at a premiere academic institution: work day flexibility, autonomy, access to state of the art instruments, smart colleagues, etc. My faculty advisor is great. He is a true mentor and an amazing scientist.

Cons

As a graduate student, you are very dependent on your department staff administration to get paid on time, etc. My department has a number of staff that are not good at their job and do not process paperwork on time or give you incorrect information. This has been one of my biggest frustrations. If you get hired into a department that has competent staff, I would say UCLA is a fantastic place to work.

Explore other reviews about UCLA

5.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great Place to be a scholar

Cons

No cons at all, just a great place.

5.0
Jun 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good hours, flexible to student time schedule, allowed me to do homework on the job

Cons

Sometimes, other students don't take your full shift and leave like 30 mins of your shift if you give it up

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