Pros
If you have the right connections or are politically savvy, you can climb the ranks. Students and instructors are great and for what it's worth, you're positively impacting people's lives through your work.
Cons
Many smart people have left honest and accurate reviews before me. My experience at GA was more or less the same. If you can avoid it, save yourself the heartache and do not take a job at GA. - HR is dysfunctional. HR departments in general exists to protect companies, I am realistic about my expectations. This team in particular works to uphold the unfair and discriminatory practices that make up the company’s DNA. They’re aware of company wide pay gaps and the barriers that exist for advancement for some groups and they do nothing to solve them. If you talk to them about your concerns, they’ll either act surprised (Oscar-worthy performances!) or explain it away. If you want to be actively gaslit or given baseless explanations for why you’re being discriminated against or underpaid - schedule a meeting with HR. Otherwise, save your time and look for another job outside the company instead. - Diversity and inclusion efforts are a joke. GA does the bare minimum to continuously recruit diverse candidates at the entry level to middle management layers of the organization - rarely does GA hire candidates at the leadership level that are POC. These team members are brought on board, quickly spot glaring diversity issues, are tapped to join "task forces" and "committees" to help "solve" longstanding structural issues, are given no budget or resources to fund those committee's initiatives, and are forced to leave when they realize it was all a farce. GA has figured out the biggest scam of all time - you never have to commit to actually solving your diversity issues if you never retain diverse talent. - Poor leadership at the highest levels of the company. I’ll echo everyone below and confirm that most people in the company dislike the company CEO. There’s a general mistrust of the executive team and rightfully so, the majority of them are simply not qualified to be decision makers for a multimillion dollar enterprise. See below. - Financial performance is scary. GA rarely hits their revenue targets. Execs set annual goals sky high despite pushback from their teams and every year the panic sets in between March-July, when they realize they’re not only in jeopardy of missing their goals but would need the help of a supernatural power in order to come close. I still have no idea how they’ve managed to keep the lights on, but be prepared to suffer whiplash from all of the extra work you'll be tasked with when the company is scrambling to soften the blow of a major revenue miss.
