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My experience as a Unit-18 Berkeley Lecturer
- TedShiller 4y agoMissing: too many students. Good universities are supposed to be selective
- WalterGR 4y agoThat’s… not really how the UC system works. If you’re looking for that, I hear there’s a school down on the Peninsula.
- donthellbanme 4y agoI have no qualms on the salary. I would love an extra $15 a day for food. The size of the classes at Berkeley has always had me scratching my head for decades now. "I found it really difficult to balance CS61A (a massive class of 2000) with CS169A (still a fairly large class of 350), since 169A required a fair bit of work in writing quizzes/exams (5 quizzes, 1 exam), grading open-ended homework assignments, and staff management." I knew people who went to Berkeley years ago, and was shocked at the class sizes. I've worked with Berkeley grads, and besides constantly signaling they went to Berkeley; I wasen't impressed with their abilities. (That goes for all the fancy schools though? All the ones we are suspose to be wowed by.) Then again some of the guys I worked with whom really impressed me were college dropouts, or mainly self taught.
- quickthrower2 4y agoDoing programming as a job has little overlap with what is learned at university. You don’t need a degree to be a coder. It is effectively a proof of work.
- donthellbanme 4y agoI had that figured out a couple of decades ago. If I started a new business, excuse me Start-up, which college applicants hide in for 4 years would have no bearing on my new hires. And yes--I'm the guy who spent way to much time hiding in college. It was cheaper in the 90's though, and I lived with my dad way too long.
- quickthrower2 4y agoA “problem” in the 90s is going to uni was rarer and so I felt a bit arrogant that I was going. One if the best at your school doesn’t mean one of the best at uni though! And I realised while I like maths, it is the maths you can visualize. My favourite was calculus and learning about limits! Just imagine it getting smaller right. But then it got more and more abstract. I lost the love of studying it and the intuition. So in a nutshell I am saying Dunning-Kruger. But I could have been just a good coder if I got a job with other coders to learn the craft and nothing beyond 0-16 yo learning. I would have self taught stuff to the same difficulty as the 16-21 yo learning but on applied topics. Learning Windows internals for example or Linux - depending on where the job took me.
- seoaeu 4y agoExtra $15/day? You’re currently not spending any money on food?
- seibelj 4y agoYou complain that pay is too low compared to the private sector… why not work in the private sector then? Unless there is a reason why you prefer teaching to business? In which case the pay cut is logical. Comparisons of totally alien industries (non-profit academia to for-profit tech startups) don’t make any sense because everything about them is overwhelmingly different.
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- shuckles 4y agoSome background: the post was written as a retrospective, and the poster did leave their job after 1.5 years. This post enumerates why, which is helpful documentation.
- dcminter 4y agoThey're competing for the same staff (clearly since the author has decided to return to industry), so why wouldn't you compare their pay?
- NovemberWhiskey 4y agoThere is a real reason for that: no-one works an adjunct because they want to stay an adjunct (or, at least, I've never heard of that). You work as an adjunct because you want to stay on the academic path while you angle for a tenure-track position. However, since the supply of PhD students grossly outnumbers the number of tenure-track positions, people do end up in some kind of limbo (post-docs, non-track lecturer or adjunct positions) for a long time. The tenured positions also don't pay as well as industry but they come with much greater freedom, more flexible balance of research vs. teaching vs. service and incredibly robust job security.
- cycomachead 4y agoThat's really not quite true. There are thousands of lecturers in the UC system, and many thousands more where it is a career choice. Because tenure track is simply just not possible at many places, especially if you want to teach and do not want to do, or do not have a research background. The UC system especially has a career progression for lecturers, though it is somewhat challenging to make it through.
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- bowsamic 4y agoThe "meals ($15/day)" think was a bit of a red flag for me. I think that americans are so used to very high salaries that they live in a very high salary way, which includes eating out at the canteen every day. Btw this is what keeps americans in america, and also those that get jobs in america get stuck in america: the wages in academia, as you say when adjusted for cost of living, are far higher than almost anywhere else. The main exception being academic jobs in China which pay an absurd amount. I know a lot of professors from around the world who are "stuck" in america bc they are so used to wages like $107k a year. I think it's just a symptom of entitlement culture: "I'm doing an important and noble job so I should be able to live without even thinking about my spending"
- stackbutterflow 4y agoFor the past few years I've read that salaries in China are extremely high in some industries (mainly tech but according to you academia too) but I've never seen any number. What "absurd amount" do academic jobs pay in China?
- bowsamic 4y agoIt can be up to half a million dollars for professors, but with incredible benefits like massive offices and skipping lines at hospitals and things.
- DeathArrow 4y agoGood for them. If you want to have the best people teaching others, you have to pay them as least as good as the industry.
- Sirened 4y agoIt's sad to hear that Fox's is leaving Berkeley. I've heard only wonderful things about her from her course staff and students. It's awful that the university cannot pay its talented faculty enough to keep them from leaving for financial reasons and worse that they can't muster a healthy academic culture that respects all their faculty equally, whether they're tenure track, adjunct, or tenured. Best of luck in industry, it's probably the right move but I'm sure you will be dearly missed!
- georgeek 4y agoSame here, from both interns we've had who took a class of hers.. It's eye-opening that the salary of an adjunct faculty member at Cal with 100% appointment with classes taught to 1.5K+ students (CS61A) is less than the tuition fees of 8 students.
- jimbob45 4y agoThis is the primary drawback of unions, no? The most talented workers leave to self-negotiate better salaries elsewhere and the company can’t do anything about it. At least that’s what I got from the article. Weird for a university professor to blame a union.
- seoaeu 4y agoI don’t think universities care whether their adjuncts are the most talented. Basically the entire point of the role these days is to undercut the cost of getting tenured faculty to teach classes. Given that backdrop I was honestly surprised to see the salary was as high as it was
- trelane 4y agoThat is almost certainly the union's doing. Unions help push back against the downward pressure on wages from employers (who are passing on the downard pressure from investors and the public).
- DantesKite 4y agoCan confirm. CS61A is a monster of a weeder course lol. If you don't have a background in programming/computer science and come in fresh with starry eyes, you better be a prodigy in learning, because it's a lot of material in a very short amount of time.
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- musicale 4y agoI don't understand the rationale behind weeder courses. Shouldn't the introductory course sequence be designed to help all students master the material? What's the point of teaching a class poorly or not giving students enough time? Does Cal not have enough faculty to teach the follow-on courses if too many students are successful, so they have to prevent students from being successful?
- DantesKite 4y agoYes. An introductory course should be designed that way to facilitate learning. They do have an introductory course before this one to get your feet wet but it isn’t a part of the degree requirements. Berkeley doesn’t have enough faculty for all the students who join. So part of it is just pragmatism. It also wants to maintain a certain level of prestige. The degree is fairly difficult to get.
- lofatdairy 4y agoHonestly, if you don't know that many US universities suffer from the dual problems of overpopulation and under-investment in undergraduate pedagogy, the concept of weeder courses would seem wholly counterintuitive. It's pragmatic, but at the same time because it mostly benefits those who go into the class already knowing the content, so at some point you wonder if degrees are slowly just becoming glorified certification programs.
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- bowsamic 4y ago> meals ($15/day) I can't quite wrap my head around this. Is there an expectation in the US that all meals must be eaten out or something?
- polyomino 4y agoI would struggle to find a single meal eating out for that price at this point lol
- dgellow 4y agoJust to get an idea, how much would it cost to eat outside for lunch? With my European perspective, 15$ is what I would expect from a nice restaurant for lunch. Or a really fancy burger in an expensive city neighbourhood.
- dataflow 4y agoYeah, a $12 entrée is pretty average for a single meal. Add anything else (tips, drink, etc.) or pick anything slightly more expensive and you'll easily hit $15. If you go for inexpensive options consistently (maybe you avoid tips and always get water at a cheaper place), you could probably average around $9-$10/meal, though you might get tired of it quickly. To average less than that while still eating out every meal, you'll have to get a bit more... creative with your selections.
- Foobar8568 4y ago
- joschmo 4y ago$107K in Berkeley for someone with 2 kids won't lead to a lavish lifestyle in the hills, but it should be very doable on a budget so I don't quite understand that complaint. This reads a bit like someone who is used to a more elevated lifestyle in the private sector not understanding how middle or working class people live. Is it the belief that someone who's entire job is teaching at a research oriented university should be paid similarly to those with greater academic credentialing (PhD) and who balance both teaching and research? That seems to be the implication here. And I don't disagree that teaching is undervalued, but Pamela Fox seems to want the higher status without the 5-6 year academic journey and brutal selection process to get tenure track positions. And academia doesn't reward great performance like the private sector so doing a great job as a lecturer would never elevate her to that upper track. It is sad to lose great teachers but a part of me finds it hard to sympathize. This reads like a very smart person not doing their homework on the way a system works though ample public resources are available to find out.
- interblag 4y agoI see where you're going with this, but a reasonable counterpoint would be that this is a CS teaching role. Most people with the skills to teach university level CS, who also live in the Bay Area, can probably earn much more than $107k/year, which is the choice she's clearly making as well. I'd also note that, from my read, she's not saying it's immoral or anything, she's just saying "I could personally earn more, so I'm leaving"...
- sweezyjeezy 4y agoFor more perspective, it's probably double what they would get for similar role in Europe, insane to me that it would require 'budgeting'. I also feel like there will be some tension between increasing wages to be competitive with SWE salaries and the staggering tuition fees that students pay in America (orders of magnitude more than their EU counterparts in comparison).
- dataflow 4y ago> it's probably double what they would get for similar role in Europe Out of curiosity, how much do you believe it would be in Europe post-tax? In California this would be around $76k.
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- fxtentacle 4y agoI find it odd that they compare startup equity grants to cash in pocket from the university job, because there's a very high chance that the equity will turn out worthless.
- gumby 4y agoI don't think she did; I assume those numbers are simply the cash figure. The phrasing "a minimum of 160K (like at a startup with high equity)" implies that the low cash number would be accompanied by a large chunk of equity.
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- RektBoy 4y ago<first baby while working in the tech industry, I got 4 months fully paid leave> This is ridiculous, how do you raise a child in US? Under the table, in your office or what. (in my country, mat. leave is by law and till your child is 3yrs old, employer is prohibited to fire you during this period, again by law. But of course, you'll not get full salary during leave, only some percents)
- watwut 4y agoChildcare. Yes, at 4 months is super soon, but that is how it is done. But also, being at home for 3 years (or 5 if there are two kids) hurts your work super lot even if you formally stay employed. And while they cant fire you while you are away, they can fire you shortly after returning back or you get position designed to make you leave voluntary. Women after that long stay away are penalized a lot. (And also, both leaving work and going back to it are pretty large adaptations.)
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- zasdffaa 4y agoWhen you need to work for a prolonged period, pop child in a large freezer. When finished, take them out and wait for sprog to warm up, bingo!. Time effectively stops for them, removing the massive friction between work and childcare. It works for food, why not? A little more seriously, raising kids properly is the most important thing there is for society, that should be explicitly recognised by a society.
- searchableguy 4y agoEmployers are required to pay for 3 years of leave and not fire you? Which country? Do you also get maternity leave for adoption?
- simiones 4y agoNot GP, but here in Romania state mandated maternity leave is 2 years at low pay or 1 year at a higher pay (the mother can choose which she prefers). And yes, the company can't fire you for becoming pregnant or being on maternity leave (I believe there are exceptions, such as bankruptcy or significant down-sizing). The state pays some of the salary, but the company pays a portion as well. This applies to adoptions as well, but only for new-born babies. Furthermore, fathers can also ask for paternal leave in the same conditions, also for up to 2 years. Only one of the parents may take this longer leave, but the parent that doesn't still has the right to 1 month of leave. Even if the 1 month is not taken, fathers can still request 5 days of special leave for this (or 10 if they attend a child care course). Note that while the pay you get for this period is based on your regular salary, it is typically capped at a fairly low level, so for high-paying positions it still represents a significant income loss.
- galkk 4y agoOnce in a blue was contacted by a guy from University of Washington for being a course instructor for CS. - Low pay? check - Not being able to change or at least select the schedule? check While I'm curious about giving back in form of some CS/programming classes, it probably won't be instructing at college.
- convolvatron 4y agowhat's up with #2? I get #1, but as a lecturer I was kind of pissy to find out my teaching schedule after it was already carved in stone. I get that there are lots of people involved and lots of constraints, but at least find out what my plans are before putting me down for a full load?
- kriro 4y agoFor comparison, a similar position in Germany entry level salary would be between 50k and 60k Euro (hired lecturer, aka 13-I) and an entry level base salary for a tenure track professor is between 70k (W2) and 85k (W3) (but they usually have to buy private insurance). If that's good or bad depends on your field...in CS it's not so great, in less employable areas it's good. I'd consider 60k solid middle class (not lower end of the spectrum).
- taurath 4y agoGermany does not have the egregious housing costs of Berkeley. It’s entirely possible to feed one’s self on that amount but not really get adequate housing, and certainly not what you’d imagine as middle class stability.
- kriro 4y agoTrue, just posted it as a data point. The salary from the article is for 9 month and mine are for 12 months so for 12 month the salary from the article would technically even be 142k. But I get her point of this actually being a 12 month job so I'll assume 107k. That being said, I quickly googled the average rent in Berkley and it's around 4k$. The salary difference (ignoring 9 vs 12 month) seems to be around 50k which is over 4k/month...which should be enough to cover average housing all else being equal. And that assumes no rent for the German counterpart :P Also depends a bit where you are in Germany. I think in Munich (most expensive) the buying price is around 10k€/square meter and Berkley city from quick googling seems to be around 12,5k$. Not sure around rent prices but I'm assuming they scale to buying prices. I found the part about health insurance interesting as well. I would probably never willingly under-insure if I had that option (I do not).
- extra88 4y ago4K/month is 45% of 107k/year gross salary, that’s not affordable. Not enough left over to save for the children’s future and for retirement. But she’s not the only income so their household income is probably fine, just lower than what she could be making in another kind of job. She should have married her partner to be on their insurance, that’s what I did.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoTeaching is a tough gig. I come from a family of academics (my brother and I are the "redneck" engineers. The rest are kinda Ivy-league). I have done training (usually one-off seminars) for years. The prep takes forever. I have known a lot of teachers, and have heard stories about lesson plans. I suspect college profs have that, X20. And academia (like nonprofits) doesn't have money, so ego can be the currency. Can make for a rather unpleasant working environment.
- photochemsyn 4y agoAdministrative salaries in the UC system are eye-opening: https://www.dailycal.org/2017/08/18/here-are-the-five-highest-paid-uc-berkeley-employees-last-year/ https://www.dailycal.org/2017/08/18/here-are-the-five-highes... > "Former chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ gross pay was $562,243. Dirks is set to go on paid leave for the next academic year, during which he will receive $434,000." This is well over the pay for say, the governor of California.
- WalterBright 4y agoIt isn't necessary to pay the governor well, given all the people who desperately want that job.
- fleddr 4y ago"For comparison, if I were to take a software engineering job right now, I would earn a minimum of 160K (like at a startup with high equity) but more like 220K+. Plus sign-on bonus ($20-120K), stock options, annual performance bonus (10-40%), etc." So this might add up to 300K. Which is a number that is unprecedented in history. Throughout most of history and to this day in pretty much every place in the world, such a salary would be reserved for the executive branch. It's an insanely high compensation largely made possible by a local tech boom, excessive venture capital, very high local living expenses, and the nature of startups, where maximum spending is considered good: 300K can be afforded because of the potential exit. That's not how 99.99999% of the jobs work, so the comparison is odd. Not at a personal level, but definitely at a societal level.
- ctvo 4y ago> So this might add up to 300K. Which is a number that is unprecedented in history. Throughout most of history and to this day in pretty much every place in the world, such a salary would be reserved for the executive branch. I'd slow down on the hyperbole. That number is specifically for the US so let's look at other white collar professions in the US that fall in similar ranges: - Finance - Consultants - Lawyers - Doctors - Accountants - Dentists ... This person is probably in the top percentile of their field if they're teaching at a top CS school so let's use the high end of those fields and not the average.
- secabeen 4y agoThis is true, but most of those jobs have significant training requirements (Lawyers, Accountants, and specifically Doctors and Dentists), and/or expect exceptionally long work hours (Doctors, Lawyers, Consultants, and especially Finance.) Silicon Valley tech is pretty unique in paying $200-300K+ for what is normally a 40 hour work week.
- fleddr 4y agoBut said person was teaching at an entry level position. Regardless, 300K is not a salary one should expect in pretty much any public function. By comparison, the PM of my country makes 150K.
- truly 4y agoIt is unfortunate when a talented teacher, as the OP seems to be, turn to industry for (significantly) more money, but this seems to be the way the market works pretty much everywhere around the world. There are however some advantages to an academic job: somewhat more flexible schedule (not when you're teaching), relative freedom to engage in whatever research you wish, no need to sit in front of a computer screen all day, job security.
- pamelafox 4y ago(Author here) The aspect of flexibility is really interesting. On the one hand, the lecturer role is way more flexible in that I can get my prep work done whenever I want, and if I did find myself all done with prep, I could garden all day instead with no guilt. (That happened once in my 1.5 years!) On the other hand, there's a lot that's more inflexible than in a SWE job: lecture times, university-dictated exam times (at night! I had to sleeptrain my toddler to make them), staff meeting times (hard to find a time that works for a staff of 50-100). So yeah- more flexible in some ways, less flexible in others, it depends what sort of flexibility you're looking for.
- truly 4y agoAs a (tenured) academic myself, I fully understand the flexibility (and the lack thereof). A staff of 50-100 sounds like a true nightmare. I've experienced classes of ~500 students myself, but 2000 seems quite excessive. Congratulations for trying out lecturing and for the eloquent writeup. P.S. Btw, I've stumbled upon your website https://www.recursionvisualizer.com/ https://www.recursionvisualizer.com/, which even works with memoized functions (in what seems to be a left-to-right call-by-value order), so I will be using this the next time I'm teaching dynamic programming or backtracking, in order to save time on drawing calls by hand on the board.
- pamelafox 4y agoOo, nice! I was actually thinking of adding specific support for a @memoize decorator that would visualize what gets added to the memo, like the visualization I made more manually for this article (scroll down): https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algorithms/recursive-algorithms/a/improving-efficiency-of-recursive-functions https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algor... Don't know when I'll ever get around to it, pull requests welcome!
- chriskanan 4y agoAs a professor, pay is very comparable across organizations for given degree programs nationwide. One hypothesis for why is that salary support on grants to faculty comes from grants with salary as a direct cost. These grants are the same amount nationwide, e.g. $600K for NSF small CISE core award. Also student tuition doesn't vary for different classes, so the university doesn't necessarily have more money for CS faculty depending on how things internally work. There is some cost of living adjustments but it is pretty minimal. The discipline adjustments are more significant. English department adjuncts are probably paid a lot less. My biggest surprise was that adjuncts are paid so well. It rivals my salary when I got tenure especially with only teaching two classes per semester and them being co-taught. I've done the visiting/adjunct thing in NYC, and the Berkeley salary is over 2x higher. But I was doing that for the joy of teaching and I had a day job.
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- dls2016 4y agoAdjuncts where? I was adjuncting at PSU Harrisburg campus last year while working on a startup… $5k/class and you have to work your way up to get a consistent course load. I believe that salary applies across the entire Penn State system. There are some professors who earn much more than average, mainly in medicine, economics and engineering from what I’ve read. Startup idea didn’t work out (and it’s stressful), so I’m back to being a working stiff.
- TecoAndJix 4y agoHey, small world! Current grad student at PSU Harrisburg (under Dr. Lee for MSIS). I'm hoping to adjunct after graduation. Did you just apply to an open posting? What was the process like?
- dls2016 4y agoNice! I actually attended there as an undergraduate many years ago. Prof Bui still remembered my name, even after my military -> industry -> academic -> industry journey. As in most institutions I've been in, if they're already familiar with your work then there's little process for getting an adjunct position because of the demand (as explained in the article). Just don't expect interesting courses right off the bat. I do have to warn you, if you're not already aware... all those articles about lack of student engagement due to pandemic are horrifyingly correct. I started adjuncting as the pandemic hit and it seemed like each semester was worse than the previous one. I just finished up my last course and it was such a slog. People barely show up, are completely silent when they do. A root canal was more fun. That said, it's a great feeling when you really make a connection and I hope to return to teaching sometime in the future. I will put my psu address in my profile, if you want to connect.
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- Gatsky 4y ago> My bank account actually nearly went to $0 last summer, which hadn't happened to me since… college? Ah yes, I remember this feeling well, the voluntary impoverishment of academia.
- bertr4nd 4y agoI’ve always considered taking a lecturer position as a sort of second career if I ever want something different from Big Tech. It’s kind of a shame the health insurance offering is mediocre, which probably rules this out, at Berkeley at least.
- fn-mote 4y agoRead the article! It's a suprisingly balanced, thoughtful take on the job of cs lecturer at Berkeley. In particular, the author mentions important issues like cheating, "grade grubbing" (and its primary cause), managing the 100 employees, associated with the course, and revising materials (which I was very suprised to find out that an adjunct would be in charge of!). (In contrast to the discussion here, which when I read it focused solely on the compensation aspect. Look for something else in the piece! There's more there than money.)
- DataJunkie 4y agoThe amount of overhead there is, on top of teaching and preparing materials is exorbitant. Managing TAs can be difficult as they are students and are still developing their technical skills. Cheating and grade grubbing are par for the course, but it seems to increase quadratically in the number of students rather than linearly. I think part of this has to do with misconceptions about curving. Revising materials is more of a milestone. As technology advances, we should be teaching more up-to-date stuff, so we typically revise what we teach and then share that with other instructors. Sometimes that takes considerable work. In some positions, the program strictly restricts what is allowed to be taught. I typically stick to the core content for about 65% of the course, and then add in my own topics for the other 35%.
- cycomachead 4y agoIt sucks that Pamela's leaving Berkeley. We worked closely together for the past year. These thoughts are incredibly valid -- I also wrote something similar after two years, though didn't share it. Salary is a tough sticking point in the Bay, but it's far from the only thing there. At the same time, it'd be one that the University could relatively easily fix if they tried... The point about inflexibility is really worth underscoring. My calendar is WAY more full during the semester than it ever was as a SWE. While my summers are quite a bit more flexible in terms of a calendar, they are completely filled with prep and research projects - some to fill in a pay gap, some that are fun... I also find the 15 week (really more like 18 week) semester in the Fall quite a slog. In industry it's often possible to take a couple days vacation when you need it without issue, but it's incredibly difficult to recharge during the semester.
- bradlys 4y agoI always find it weird that people in these threads where compensation come up have a real crab in the bucket mentality. “I’m not getting paid that much! It’s not fair! You shouldn’t get it because I didn’t get it!” Instead of advocating for advancing their own wages - they instead wish to pull others down. I’d understand the argument if you were arguing against people who weren’t laborers (e.g. capitalists) but for fellow laborers - this is truly crab in bucket mentality and is abhorrent.
- wly_cdgr 4y agoBananas that cost of living in the area is so high that 100k can still leave you cutting it close. Although of course it's actually only like 65k after taxes, and there's zero hope of a unicorn payday. Accepting that you will absolutely, certainly never be financially independent ain't for everyone, especially in one of the few fields where you can reasonably feel that you don't have to accept that Still, the pay is better than I thought and MUCH better than most adjunct situations. Even with all the caveats, I would 100% take this over an industry job that paid 2-3x. Sounds really fulfilling and fun as fuck
- cycomachead 4y agoI would honestly say that you should consider this! If you think you'd enjoy teaching at a place like Berkeley and have experience, there is a need! https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF03311 https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF03311 -- this is the CS job posting https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/apply https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/apply -- this has all the lecturer postings, including related fields. It's really hard to find folks who are going to enjoy the tradeoffs. (Also feel free to contact me directly. Append gmail.com to my username.)
- DataJunkie 4y agoI am also a Unit 18 lecturer in a computer science program. What Fox writes is true. The Unit 18 arrangement is weird. I do it because I am technically temporary and only teach once or twice a year. My full time job is elsewhere. At my UC, there is a separate ladder called Lecturer Full-Time PSOE/SOE. It's not clear why she wasn't on that ladder. Perhaps Cal doesn't have one.