Hello I’m Timothy from Germany I just joined the forum after finding out about EA through Peter Singer a couple of days ago. I am just 18 years old so I still have my whole career ahead of me. I’m currently thinking about what to study and what to do in the next six months before university will start. Any suggestions welcome, especially for what to do in the next six months.
Hi Timothy, it’s great that you found your way here! There’s a vibrant German EA community (including an upcoming conference in Berlin in September/October that you may want to join).
Regarding your university studies, I essentially agree with Ryan’s comment. However, while studying in the UK and US can be great, I appreciate that doing so may be daunting and financially infeasible for many young Germans. If you decide to study in Germany and are more interested in the social sciences than in the natural sciences, I would encourage you (like Ryan) to consider undergraduate programs that combine economics with politics and/or philosophy. I can recommend the BA Philosophy & Economics at the University of Bayreuth, though you should also consider the BSc Economics at the University of Mannheim (which you can combine with a minor in philosophy or political science).
In case you are interested in talking through all this sometime, feel free to reach out to me and we’ll schedule a call. :)
It depends what your strengths and interests are, but let me give some generic thoughts.
Most EA high-schoolers who like math/science should at least consider a CS degree (useful for AI safety research and job security in software development), or a math/econ double degree (useful for Econ PhD, policy, and big picture strategy research). I would recommend that a strong student apply to US universities, because they are far stronger than any outside US/UK/CH. But it’s a few months past the deadline for those (and UK universities too). If you’re confident you can lodge a strong application to US schools, but you didn’t do it this year, then you could take a gap year, and apply in 6 months. For people who dislike maths and are excited about policy or politics, another option is law, which in a US setting could follow an undergrad in some combo of polisci, philosophy, and econ.
Hello I’m Timothy from Germany I just joined the forum after finding out about EA through Peter Singer a couple of days ago. I am just 18 years old so I still have my whole career ahead of me. I’m currently thinking about what to study and what to do in the next six months before university will start. Any suggestions welcome, especially for what to do in the next six months.
Hi Timothy, it’s great that you found your way here! There’s a vibrant German EA community (including an upcoming conference in Berlin in September/October that you may want to join).
Regarding your university studies, I essentially agree with Ryan’s comment. However, while studying in the UK and US can be great, I appreciate that doing so may be daunting and financially infeasible for many young Germans. If you decide to study in Germany and are more interested in the social sciences than in the natural sciences, I would encourage you (like Ryan) to consider undergraduate programs that combine economics with politics and/or philosophy. I can recommend the BA Philosophy & Economics at the University of Bayreuth, though you should also consider the BSc Economics at the University of Mannheim (which you can combine with a minor in philosophy or political science).
In case you are interested in talking through all this sometime, feel free to reach out to me and we’ll schedule a call. :)
It depends what your strengths and interests are, but let me give some generic thoughts.
Most EA high-schoolers who like math/science should at least consider a CS degree (useful for AI safety research and job security in software development), or a math/econ double degree (useful for Econ PhD, policy, and big picture strategy research). I would recommend that a strong student apply to US universities, because they are far stronger than any outside US/UK/CH. But it’s a few months past the deadline for those (and UK universities too). If you’re confident you can lodge a strong application to US schools, but you didn’t do it this year, then you could take a gap year, and apply in 6 months. For people who dislike maths and are excited about policy or politics, another option is law, which in a US setting could follow an undergrad in some combo of polisci, philosophy, and econ.
I’d be interested to hear what others think too!