One hour (maybe two) fellowship sessions isn’t long enough to get into “late night life-changing conversations” mode, which is important for big changes.
This to me is the main downside.
I got introduced to EA over a 3 week in-person summer program, and my experience is that 2~4 week in person intensive programs have a good track record in getting people excited and engaged. Off the top of my head 1 out of 3 participants in the camps ive been involved in became counterfactually engaged, 1 out of three was engaged but would be anyway and 1 out of three bounced off and didn’t stay engaged.
Late night conversations and a great vibe was a big part of why I stayed engaged, and matches my intuitions of what works best to help people grow and connect.
I would be interested on having more data about 6 month after retention for the Intro EA Fellowships, both for the whole group and for the subgroups that are considered “more promising”.
I agree that this would help address some of the downsides of an IF. I have heard that pairing programming together (e.g., a fellowship discussion followed by a mealtime social) would be optimal and based on my personal experience with student communities outside of EA, that rings true.
Unfortunately, I have yet to implement that in UChicago EA, but I would be interested to see if that improves engagement among IF fellows!
One concern I have would be that these socials wouldn’t be mandatory, and so you may be selecting out promising EAs who just haven’t built enough rapport yet. It would be great to be able to combine deep un/structured engagement in a ‘mandatory’ setting.
True—I wonder if two things that might address that are
Explicitly inviting people (especially those who may not be as connected) to the social and having organizers be warm and attentive (in general I find that explicit encouragement / invitation is quite powerful!)
Ending the mandatory session with either something fun and social, or deep and personal/reflective (appropriate to context and the conversation that’s just happened), which could both transition it to social and be engineered to help the intellectual notes be integrated into one’s worldview.
Thanks for sharing this, Chana! In the initial draft post, I had included some smaller changes to the Intro Fellowship, one of which was to host all sessions as dinner parties in an effort to draw out these late-night convos—so I’m really excited this is something you’re thinking about. +1 on both of your interventions above.
I’d also add that I think there are two types of 1-on-1s I do with fellows: the first is the classic career 1-on-1 where I try to connect people with useful resources / opportunities to speed them along in their EA journey. The second is just to get to know them as a human being, knowing that if I build personal rapport, they will likely stick around the EA community and be exposed to even more things. I think more organizers should generally try the second type of 1-on-1 more! (sometimes I tell the fellow we have two options and ask them what they would find most useful use of their time)
I suspect that for all the but the most gung-ho people, the second should come before the first, or take up the first half of the meeting. I remember doing community building for the Jewish community in college and people started to find some of the overweening helpfulness off-putting. (But organizers may just be better at it than I was)
Would love to hear about this 3 week program! From my skim (will read properly soon), that is the alternative I am most excited about. For example, my shift from planning a career in communications to community building is almost entirely attributable to a 3-day retreat I went on.
It was the MIRI Summer Fellows in 2015. For full disclosure it was not about EA, and I came off it being turned off by EA aesthetics. But it was where I first heard about the movement, and it was crucial for my involvement in the long term.
It’s hard to pinpoint but I think it’s somehting along the lines of a) the messaging didn’t match my perceived self-image (“I am not an altruist”), b) they seemed weirdly fanatical (“donating 10% of my money seems crazy weird”) and c) I was not impressed with the people I interacted with (concretely the people from eg the rationality community seemed comparatively more thoughful and to be working on cooler things).
I am unsure of whether I would have changed my mind had I interacted more with the community at that time—I think the quality of discussion has improved a lot since then.
> How did it end up being crucial for your long-term engagement?
After the MIRI Summer Fellows I started organizing a community in Spain (primarily about rationality, though some of the other people involved were self-identifying Effective Altruists and we also organized events about that. I also participated in several more Rationality and Effective Altruism events.
I kept talking to Effective Altruists regularly, and eventually became convinced that they were working on cool things and that it was a community I wanted to be a part of.
This to me is the main downside.
I got introduced to EA over a 3 week in-person summer program, and my experience is that 2~4 week in person intensive programs have a good track record in getting people excited and engaged. Off the top of my head 1 out of 3 participants in the camps ive been involved in became counterfactually engaged, 1 out of three was engaged but would be anyway and 1 out of three bounced off and didn’t stay engaged.
Late night conversations and a great vibe was a big part of why I stayed engaged, and matches my intuitions of what works best to help people grow and connect.
I would be interested on having more data about 6 month after retention for the Intro EA Fellowships, both for the whole group and for the subgroups that are considered “more promising”.
Agree with value of late night conversations. Can discussions be held later, and over dinner, with an easy way to transition into just talking?
I agree that this would help address some of the downsides of an IF. I have heard that pairing programming together (e.g., a fellowship discussion followed by a mealtime social) would be optimal and based on my personal experience with student communities outside of EA, that rings true.
Unfortunately, I have yet to implement that in UChicago EA, but I would be interested to see if that improves engagement among IF fellows!
One concern I have would be that these socials wouldn’t be mandatory, and so you may be selecting out promising EAs who just haven’t built enough rapport yet. It would be great to be able to combine deep un/structured engagement in a ‘mandatory’ setting.
True—I wonder if two things that might address that are
Explicitly inviting people (especially those who may not be as connected) to the social and having organizers be warm and attentive (in general I find that explicit encouragement / invitation is quite powerful!)
Ending the mandatory session with either something fun and social, or deep and personal/reflective (appropriate to context and the conversation that’s just happened), which could both transition it to social and be engineered to help the intellectual notes be integrated into one’s worldview.
Thanks for sharing this, Chana! In the initial draft post, I had included some smaller changes to the Intro Fellowship, one of which was to host all sessions as dinner parties in an effort to draw out these late-night convos—so I’m really excited this is something you’re thinking about. +1 on both of your interventions above.
I’d also add that I think there are two types of 1-on-1s I do with fellows: the first is the classic career 1-on-1 where I try to connect people with useful resources / opportunities to speed them along in their EA journey. The second is just to get to know them as a human being, knowing that if I build personal rapport, they will likely stick around the EA community and be exposed to even more things. I think more organizers should generally try the second type of 1-on-1 more! (sometimes I tell the fellow we have two options and ask them what they would find most useful use of their time)
I suspect that for all the but the most gung-ho people, the second should come before the first, or take up the first half of the meeting. I remember doing community building for the Jewish community in college and people started to find some of the overweening helpfulness off-putting. (But organizers may just be better at it than I was)
Would love to hear about this 3 week program! From my skim (will read properly soon), that is the alternative I am most excited about. For example, my shift from planning a career in communications to community building is almost entirely attributable to a 3-day retreat I went on.
Retreats are awesome!
It was the MIRI Summer Fellows in 2015. For full disclosure it was not about EA, and I came off it being turned off by EA aesthetics. But it was where I first heard about the movement, and it was crucial for my involvement in the long term.
Ah, interesting! Two questions:
Why did you end up being turned off by EA?
How did it end up being crucial for your long-term engagement?
It’s hard to pinpoint but I think it’s somehting along the lines of a) the messaging didn’t match my perceived self-image (“I am not an altruist”), b) they seemed weirdly fanatical (“donating 10% of my money seems crazy weird”) and c) I was not impressed with the people I interacted with (concretely the people from eg the rationality community seemed comparatively more thoughful and to be working on cooler things).
I am unsure of whether I would have changed my mind had I interacted more with the community at that time—I think the quality of discussion has improved a lot since then.
> How did it end up being crucial for your long-term engagement?
After the MIRI Summer Fellows I started organizing a community in Spain (primarily about rationality, though some of the other people involved were self-identifying Effective Altruists and we also organized events about that. I also participated in several more Rationality and Effective Altruism events.
I kept talking to Effective Altruists regularly, and eventually became convinced that they were working on cool things and that it was a community I wanted to be a part of.