TL;DR: I resonated with quite a few of your points as one of UChicago EA’s main organizers, and I agree that the IF is not currently the optimal model for introducing University students to EA. I think one conservative trial to run would be to replace the last few weeks of the IF with a retreat and/or workshop. More generally, I think a careers-first approach could be more optimal.
Thank you for this post, particularly since many groups seem to have committed to the fellowship model in recent years! While I think the fellowship model is an improvement upon the older model of weekly discussions/presentations, my experience running UChicago EA’s Intro Fellowship definitely overlaps with some of the downsides mentioned here.
Specifically, I agree with these downsides:
the 8-week fellowship feeling ‘slow’
I’m not sure it’s necessary to do sprints of deep engagement (e.g., pulling all-nighters), but I do think a feeling energized and agentic is important—and not optimally-served by the IF’s monotonous structure
Anecdotally, I’ve had fellows tell me that they wanted to apply EA principles around week 5 - and even express confusion/difficulty in ‘pitching’ UChicago EA (e.g., “what do we do as students interested in EA?”)
lack of “late night life-changing conversations”
although I’ve been consistently impressed with the quality and nuance of my fellows’ discussions, it’s not comparable to the kind of conversations I had while I was living at a dorm on-campus. Those may not have been life-changing but they were extremely effective at creating bonds, and were also quite thought-provoking. My dorm also has a reputation for producing very committed students (e.g., people whose social circles largely consist of the dorm’s residents), which seems relevant to the goals of EA CBs
Furthermore, these really need to happen in a casual setting. I don’t think these discussions are equivalent to the kind of discussions that happen during an IF. I think these long, casual conversations are better for cultivating community (and potentially community norms) than for transferring EA knowledge—although I’m not very certain about this.
edit: Per Chana’s comment, a potential solution would be to pair un/structured engagement together, like following a discussion up with meals. But I am not super excited about this under an IF model because the unstructured engagement seems too variable (unreliable) here.
I agree less with these downsides:
commitment issues
There are certainly issues with showing up for every session but I don’t think it is overly problematic to skip 1-3 sessions, which has been the maximum I’ve experienced in-person. Additionally, this might serve as a proxy for long-term engagement, allowing organizers to better filter for potential HEA
context being lost
not only has this not been my experience but I also think it’s important to account for when trying to figure out who is most promising, because post-college life is just as (if not moreso) hectic. If we are trying to predict who will sustain EA engagement long-term, surely we should try to assess them in contexts that are more similar to post-college life?
Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s optimal to *introduce* new members in such an environment. I’m simply making the case that, at some point, it might be helpful to be able to filter out people who do not stay engaged week after week.
I somewhat disagree with the following upsides of an IF:
the IF prepares fellows to “make decisions about their careers”
I wholly agree that it is extremely important for fellows to first be exposed to the fundamentals of EA, and that it would be odd for fellows to change career plans after a retreat (though this is ironic, given I did this).
However, I don’t think the IF prepares them well for the act of career planning (or, possibly, any other implementation step). Though the last two weeks encourage fellows to start thinking about their careers, I feel like it’s a large jump for them to start applying EA principles without doing any sort of career planning preparation or even having a 1:1 about their thoughts.
A retreat being more of a time commitment
I actually think we’re in agreement here, but you put this as an upside of IFs. : ) Regardless of the *number* of hours, a *weekend* feels like much less commitment than a quarter/semester-long commitment. I definitely agree that it would be harder to market though (see below).
I haven’t been running UChicago EA for long so I’m not sure what retention from our IF is like, but as far as I can tell,
~2 out of ~15 fellows from our last year engaged with us this year (but last year was highly abnormal given that we ran the IF virtually, and only ~2 fellows went to more than 2 sessions)
- 1⁄2 of HEA alumni, as identified by CEA, were part of leadership (and so it is unclear if the IF was what sustained their engagement)
Based on personal experience from CEA’s US Uni Organizer retreat this August, I was initially most excited by the idea of a fellowship retreat. This seems more likely to create social bonds than fellowship discussion, too, which could be more efficient since the current norm is to separate un/structured programming (e.g., fellowship discussions and mealtime socials).
However, I am concerned about marketing this. It’s hard enough to market the Intro Fellowship—it’s not common programming among UChicago student groups—and I think it would be even more strange for us to advertise a retreat (not to mention that both requiring people to pay for it and saying it is fully covered seem odd).
To successfully market it, I imagine you’d need to first create a community through weekly programming that serves the purpose of identifying the most promising members (similar to the aim of the 3-week fellowship sprint here).
I think this could be mitigated by framing the student group as career-focused. So you could say, “on this retreat, we will teach you how to find the most impactful career,” which sounds less weird to me than, “we will discuss how to do the most good.”
I am also concerned about the social dynamics. If the retreat happens early on, then there would be very little vetting and unlike with CEA retreats, it’s uncertain that they are all EA-aligned. UChicago EA has previously had an issue with one member previously experiencing harrassment by another (which happened prior to either of them becoming interested in UChiEA, but still was a barrier for the former member). There are clear guard-rails against this that we have since implemented, i.e. asking members if there is anyone they would NOT want to be with, but I still would be concerned about throwing together a potentially diverse or incompatible group.
I am also concerned, but less so, about retention. I can’t imagine running a retreat without follow-up programming, and I would be excited to launch a workshop series (e.g., career planning, along with all the great ideas you suggest) afterwards.
Overall, these seem like pretty large barriers to running a retreat early on. I think you would want to first build a community and be able to target this opportunity to the most promising members.
I am much less excited about a self-directed fellowship and activity-based IF. The latter sounds exciting in theory, but if I think about it, it would just feel too much like homework! I don’t think people would be committed without first understanding the basics of EA (and this is important for them, too, to see if they even want to stay engaged).
As another alternative, I would be very excited to truncate our Intro Fellowship (our syllabus is based on the Virtual Programs & Swarthmore’s) by replacing the last three more ‘practical’ weeks with a workshop—either similar to the activity-based IF suggested here, or planning a project that usually would occur post-fellowship (e.g., cause research). Perhaps this could even include a kick-off retreat, followed up by 1:1s/office hours/weekly working hours.
edit: Per Anjay F’s comment, I would similarly be excited to combine an IF with workshops, e.g. by alternating weeks.
I also think, more broadly, that student groups might want to prioritize career planning in their messaging. This helps put things in perspective and is incredibly attractive to most university students, who typically have no idea what they want to do but feel pressure to figure that out.
TL;DR: I resonated with quite a few of your points as one of UChicago EA’s main organizers, and I agree that the IF is not currently the optimal model for introducing University students to EA. I think one conservative trial to run would be to replace the last few weeks of the IF with a retreat and/or workshop. More generally, I think a careers-first approach could be more optimal.
Thank you for this post, particularly since many groups seem to have committed to the fellowship model in recent years! While I think the fellowship model is an improvement upon the older model of weekly discussions/presentations, my experience running UChicago EA’s Intro Fellowship definitely overlaps with some of the downsides mentioned here.
Specifically, I agree with these downsides:
the 8-week fellowship feeling ‘slow’
I’m not sure it’s necessary to do sprints of deep engagement (e.g., pulling all-nighters), but I do think a feeling energized and agentic is important—and not optimally-served by the IF’s monotonous structure
Anecdotally, I’ve had fellows tell me that they wanted to apply EA principles around week 5 - and even express confusion/difficulty in ‘pitching’ UChicago EA (e.g., “what do we do as students interested in EA?”)
lack of “late night life-changing conversations”
although I’ve been consistently impressed with the quality and nuance of my fellows’ discussions, it’s not comparable to the kind of conversations I had while I was living at a dorm on-campus. Those may not have been life-changing but they were extremely effective at creating bonds, and were also quite thought-provoking. My dorm also has a reputation for producing very committed students (e.g., people whose social circles largely consist of the dorm’s residents), which seems relevant to the goals of EA CBs
Furthermore, these really need to happen in a casual setting. I don’t think these discussions are equivalent to the kind of discussions that happen during an IF. I think these long, casual conversations are better for cultivating community (and potentially community norms) than for transferring EA knowledge—although I’m not very certain about this.
edit: Per Chana’s comment, a potential solution would be to pair un/structured engagement together, like following a discussion up with meals. But I am not super excited about this under an IF model because the unstructured engagement seems too variable (unreliable) here.
I agree less with these downsides:
commitment issues
There are certainly issues with showing up for every session but I don’t think it is overly problematic to skip 1-3 sessions, which has been the maximum I’ve experienced in-person. Additionally, this might serve as a proxy for long-term engagement, allowing organizers to better filter for potential HEA
context being lost
not only has this not been my experience but I also think it’s important to account for when trying to figure out who is most promising, because post-college life is just as (if not moreso) hectic. If we are trying to predict who will sustain EA engagement long-term, surely we should try to assess them in contexts that are more similar to post-college life?
Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s optimal to *introduce* new members in such an environment. I’m simply making the case that, at some point, it might be helpful to be able to filter out people who do not stay engaged week after week.
I somewhat disagree with the following upsides of an IF:
the IF prepares fellows to “make decisions about their careers”
I wholly agree that it is extremely important for fellows to first be exposed to the fundamentals of EA, and that it would be odd for fellows to change career plans after a retreat (though this is ironic, given I did this).
However, I don’t think the IF prepares them well for the act of career planning (or, possibly, any other implementation step). Though the last two weeks encourage fellows to start thinking about their careers, I feel like it’s a large jump for them to start applying EA principles without doing any sort of career planning preparation or even having a 1:1 about their thoughts.
A retreat being more of a time commitment
I actually think we’re in agreement here, but you put this as an upside of IFs. : ) Regardless of the *number* of hours, a *weekend* feels like much less commitment than a quarter/semester-long commitment. I definitely agree that it would be harder to market though (see below).
I haven’t been running UChicago EA for long so I’m not sure what retention from our IF is like, but as far as I can tell,
~2 out of ~15 fellows from our last year engaged with us this year (but last year was highly abnormal given that we ran the IF virtually, and only ~2 fellows went to more than 2 sessions)
- 1⁄2 of HEA alumni, as identified by CEA, were part of leadership (and so it is unclear if the IF was what sustained their engagement)
Based on personal experience from CEA’s US Uni Organizer retreat this August, I was initially most excited by the idea of a fellowship retreat. This seems more likely to create social bonds than fellowship discussion, too, which could be more efficient since the current norm is to separate un/structured programming (e.g., fellowship discussions and mealtime socials).
However, I am concerned about marketing this. It’s hard enough to market the Intro Fellowship—it’s not common programming among UChicago student groups—and I think it would be even more strange for us to advertise a retreat (not to mention that both requiring people to pay for it and saying it is fully covered seem odd).
To successfully market it, I imagine you’d need to first create a community through weekly programming that serves the purpose of identifying the most promising members (similar to the aim of the 3-week fellowship sprint here).
I think this could be mitigated by framing the student group as career-focused. So you could say, “on this retreat, we will teach you how to find the most impactful career,” which sounds less weird to me than, “we will discuss how to do the most good.”
I am also concerned about the social dynamics. If the retreat happens early on, then there would be very little vetting and unlike with CEA retreats, it’s uncertain that they are all EA-aligned. UChicago EA has previously had an issue with one member previously experiencing harrassment by another (which happened prior to either of them becoming interested in UChiEA, but still was a barrier for the former member). There are clear guard-rails against this that we have since implemented, i.e. asking members if there is anyone they would NOT want to be with, but I still would be concerned about throwing together a potentially diverse or incompatible group.
I am also concerned, but less so, about retention. I can’t imagine running a retreat without follow-up programming, and I would be excited to launch a workshop series (e.g., career planning, along with all the great ideas you suggest) afterwards.
Overall, these seem like pretty large barriers to running a retreat early on. I think you would want to first build a community and be able to target this opportunity to the most promising members.
I am much less excited about a self-directed fellowship and activity-based IF. The latter sounds exciting in theory, but if I think about it, it would just feel too much like homework! I don’t think people would be committed without first understanding the basics of EA (and this is important for them, too, to see if they even want to stay engaged).
As another alternative, I would be very excited to truncate our Intro Fellowship (our syllabus is based on the Virtual Programs & Swarthmore’s) by replacing the last three more ‘practical’ weeks with a workshop—either similar to the activity-based IF suggested here, or planning a project that usually would occur post-fellowship (e.g., cause research). Perhaps this could even include a kick-off retreat, followed up by 1:1s/office hours/weekly working hours.
edit: Per Anjay F’s comment, I would similarly be excited to combine an IF with workshops, e.g. by alternating weeks.
I also think, more broadly, that student groups might want to prioritize career planning in their messaging. This helps put things in perspective and is incredibly attractive to most university students, who typically have no idea what they want to do but feel pressure to figure that out.