I’m glad to see that more people raise these points, and thank you for writing about them! I’ve been thinking about these things for over a year now, and I am in the process of writing two forum posts that will cover most of these points. The first post is about engaging students through projects focused on developing competence and planning their career. This post will likely be published within a week from now. The second post is about a model of engagement-driven student groups especially tailored towards giving students opportunities to do good during their studies. I expect this second post to be published late June. Both of the posts will be grounded in theories of motivation, the model used to organize EA NTNU, and data gathered from internal surveys. Hopefully, they will provide just the answers you need to start engaging the students at your university in meaningful projects despite the limited opportunities.
While I’m at it, I might as well share with you a suggestion I have made to Lizka about “[...] making a library of student projects at the EA Forum. This suggestion resulted from the post-EAG London 2022 GCP group organizers summit, where a bunch of group organizers expressed interest in making a library of student projects. The rationale behind this is that more an more student groups are transitioning to an engagement-driven model using project work as a funnel for engagement to EA. The success of engagement-driven groups is dependent on having promising projects to work with, which are not always easy to find, especially for student with little to no prior knowledge or experience. Instead of having engagement-driven groups spend time and energy on generating projects separately, I think we should have an international library of student projects that all groups can contribute to and use for inspiration for their own projects. My recent forum post—Successful student project for engaging with AI alignment—EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org) - is an example of a transferable project with good track record that is readily available for other groups to work on. I wish to see more sharing of repeatable projects with good track record, but instead of having them all as separate forum posts, I think it’s a better idea to have them located in a dedicated library.
Initially, I want to hear your thoughts about such a library for student project. Is it something you think is valuable to spend time on developing?
Unfortunately, I have not yet received a response from Lizka, so getting feedback from you will be valuable for me to know if this is a good idea or not, and whether there actually is a demand among community builders to have such a library of student projects.
I’m glad to see that more people raise these points, and thank you for writing about them! I’ve been thinking about these things for over a year now, and I am in the process of writing two forum posts that will cover most of these points. The first post is about engaging students through projects focused on developing competence and planning their career. This post will likely be published within a week from now. The second post is about a model of engagement-driven student groups especially tailored towards giving students opportunities to do good during their studies. I expect this second post to be published late June. Both of the posts will be grounded in theories of motivation, the model used to organize EA NTNU, and data gathered from internal surveys. Hopefully, they will provide just the answers you need to start engaging the students at your university in meaningful projects despite the limited opportunities.
Meanwhile, here is a specific example of a project with good track record that you can now run at your university group, and here is a template you can use to outline your own projects. Additionally, here is an Overview of projects at EA NTNU that can give you a rough idea of an what an engagement-driven group can look like. Note however, that the post about EA NTNU is outdated, which is why I am writing new forum posts. We have learned a lot since then, and I can’t wait to share about our improvements!
While I’m at it, I might as well share with you a suggestion I have made to Lizka about “[...] making a library of student projects at the EA Forum. This suggestion resulted from the post-EAG London 2022 GCP group organizers summit, where a bunch of group organizers expressed interest in making a library of student projects. The rationale behind this is that more an more student groups are transitioning to an engagement-driven model using project work as a funnel for engagement to EA. The success of engagement-driven groups is dependent on having promising projects to work with, which are not always easy to find, especially for student with little to no prior knowledge or experience. Instead of having engagement-driven groups spend time and energy on generating projects separately, I think we should have an international library of student projects that all groups can contribute to and use for inspiration for their own projects. My recent forum post—Successful student project for engaging with AI alignment—EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org) - is an example of a transferable project with good track record that is readily available for other groups to work on. I wish to see more sharing of repeatable projects with good track record, but instead of having them all as separate forum posts, I think it’s a better idea to have them located in a dedicated library.
Initially, I want to hear your thoughts about such a library for student project. Is it something you think is valuable to spend time on developing?
Here is my suggested segmentation of such a library of student projects:
(Template for project descriptions)
Transferable/repeatable projects with good track record
Robert Miles’ AI Safety Discord Channel & Stampy’s Wiki
Conditional projects with good track record
Promising project ideas
EA Outreach Through Ethics Classes
Unexplored project ideas
Projects with mixed track record
Projects with poor track record ”
Unfortunately, I have not yet received a response from Lizka, so getting feedback from you will be valuable for me to know if this is a good idea or not, and whether there actually is a demand among community builders to have such a library of student projects.