Pros
I really connected with the students and with my coworkers of my same level.
Cons
As an assistant, you are bound to work for your share of problematic people, but my experience at GW went beyond that. I experienced workplace bullying at the hands of a high ranking employee. This supervisor made me feel belittled because I wasn't faculty and I am young. The culture of GW as a whole supports their opinion that staff, especially young staff, are barely above the rank of a student staffer. More than that, I experienced emotional and verbal abuse every day. I had to completely change how I worked in order to survive this environment of chronic anger, personal criticism, and an outright invasion of my privacy. GW claims to be a place that supports employee growth and mentorship through feedback and performance review, but I did not get that support from my supervisor or HR when it mattered. I went to HR from the very beginning, hoping to report my supervisor for creating a toxic work environment and eventually violating my right to privacy. My complaints were pushed aside with empty promises of impending changes. In the end, I realized that GW HR supports a culture that protects my supervisor's awful treatment of me simply because they were a high-ranking employee. I was meant to simply put up with things until I finally accepted another role outside of the university. My experience at GW is still affecting me though. I'm still feeling the impact on my mental health of chronic bullying and a lack of support even though my new job could not be more different or more positive. It saddens me to have to write this review even after leaving, but I hope helping someone else might help me move forward. GW is not the environment for young, entry-level staff looking to start their careers. You will not feel happy or supported in that journey.
