I agree to an extent, especially at the very high level that you’re talking about—if someone hates programing or wet lab research I think it is unlikely to matter what the program or lab is. However, within more social science type research / work I’m familiar with I don’t view testing your fit with different types of research as mutually exclusive with testing your fit for researching within a cause area. In fact I think they’re often linked since the cause area influences the type of research and work generally you’ll be doing. To take an area I know well, law: it seems reasonable to me that someone who is interested in testing their fit in legal research or working as a lawyer generally would also benefit from trying working on different cause areas since the legal issues and types of research will be significantly different. Someone who enjoys trying to draft an international agreement to ban certain types of AI models may not be interested in doing domestic litigation focused on animal welfare. Though at a high level they could be called “legal research” or just lawyering, the day to day is going to be quite different.
I agree to an extent, especially at the very high level that you’re talking about—if someone hates programing or wet lab research I think it is unlikely to matter what the program or lab is. However, within more social science type research / work I’m familiar with I don’t view testing your fit with different types of research as mutually exclusive with testing your fit for researching within a cause area. In fact I think they’re often linked since the cause area influences the type of research and work generally you’ll be doing. To take an area I know well, law: it seems reasonable to me that someone who is interested in testing their fit in legal research or working as a lawyer generally would also benefit from trying working on different cause areas since the legal issues and types of research will be significantly different. Someone who enjoys trying to draft an international agreement to ban certain types of AI models may not be interested in doing domestic litigation focused on animal welfare. Though at a high level they could be called “legal research” or just lawyering, the day to day is going to be quite different.