My experience as a Unit-18 Berkeley Lecturer
From spring 2021 through spring 2022, I was a Unit-18 Lecturer for UC Berkeley in the EECS department. A Unit-18 lecturer is what is often called "adjunct"; it's not on a tenure track, isn't part of the "Academic Senate", and it's represented by a union. Since I don't have a PhD, I am not eligible for tenure-track lecturer roles at UC Berkeley.
I include my lifeload above as I imagine my experience may have been different if I didn't have a young child to support financially and to care for in the evenings/weekends.
Here are my reflections on the various aspects of being a Unit-18 lecturer. I am grateful for the experience, as I've learned a lot, but alas, there were more negatives than positives in the end. I will be going back to industry, but perhaps one day will return to academia when it's a better fit.
My salary as a Unit-18 lecturer with a 100% appointment was about 100K annual compensation until our union's strike and new contract brought it to be about 107K. That compensation is technically for 9 months (since we "only work 9 months") but spread over 12 months.
