This strongly aligns with my thinking around high school outreach opportunities:
TL;DR: Specifically targeting STEM, logic, debate, and philosophy competitors with short outreach could increase high school outreach effectiveness.… This would give these individuals more time to think about career choice and enable them to start building flexible career capital early and might make them more open to engaging with EA in the future.
Participating in ISEF, mock trial, and Science Bowl (and following others who did through their careers) makes one realize how a) impact-oriented, and b) career-centric many of these student competitors are. Several friends knew at age 17 they wanted to pursue PhDs or JDs. They went ahead and obtained those degrees, and come 2021 they are vocal faculty members at prominent law schools or U.S. colleges. Expanding this category of student’s “mental menu” of great career options to include:
A tour of duty as a Campus Specialist, as an alternative to the usual suspects such as the Peace Corps/Fulbright Scholarship/teaching programs that many mission-driven students consider
Including high-impact research agendas: the friends I know who are now teaching law/philosophy are sadly deep into their not-especially-high-impact specialties
This strongly aligns with my thinking around high school outreach opportunities:
Participating in ISEF, mock trial, and Science Bowl (and following others who did through their careers) makes one realize how a) impact-oriented, and b) career-centric many of these student competitors are. Several friends knew at age 17 they wanted to pursue PhDs or JDs. They went ahead and obtained those degrees, and come 2021 they are vocal faculty members at prominent law schools or U.S. colleges. Expanding this category of student’s “mental menu” of great career options to include:
A tour of duty as a Campus Specialist, as an alternative to the usual suspects such as the Peace Corps/Fulbright Scholarship/teaching programs that many mission-driven students consider
High-impact careers on 80,000 Hours’s radar screen
Including high-impact research agendas: the friends I know who are now teaching law/philosophy are sadly deep into their not-especially-high-impact specialties
Startup and ETG opportunities from an EA perspective, as expressed nicely by Lincoln Quirk, the Alameda Research/FTX case study, etc.
Strikes me as a very exciting opportunity for 2022 and beyond. Thank you for your write-up here!
I have a similar model to you about these students. How in touch are you with current high schoolers doing this kind of thing?