Great place to work in research - Research Assistant II Vanderbilt University Medical Center Employee Review

Great benefits and work environment

As any healthcare job, we’re understaffed.

Your experience is determined by your PI. Most of the enjoyment I get from my job comes from the people I work with, and the grad students and post-docs above me have been receptive to tailoring my responsibilities to allow me to gain experience in the areas I want more expertise in. They are very understanding that working as a RA is temporary, and most use it to use it as a resume builder. Health care benefits are good.

The pay isn't great, and there isn't much opportunity for growth within the lab unless you want and can become a lab manager. While I have had opportunities to doing more meaningful analysis and experimental design (after I asked for it), often my responsibilities are repetitive tasks or procedures that the graduate students or post-docs didn't want to do.