Super late to this, but still (probably) worth adding a few thoughts I think, as they don’t seem to be present in the below.
I was surprised at just how diverse the people I met were in their journeys with EA. I met one person who had learned about EA just earlier that month and hadn’t engaged beyond reading a few articles, while also sitting down to talk to people experienced and incredibly active in the space like Michael Aird. While this created some problems (some of the talks seemed geared towards a much less familiar audience) it also was wonderful for helping encourage against siloing EA based on experience.
I would say that the biggest, most important message I took away from my conversations is that one shouldn’t put as much pressure as a lot of young EA members do on getting it right from their first job. I heard from many people further along in their career that their first job was often unrelated and not an imperative part of finding their way to their later effective career, generally reminding me that like other important aspects of lives, figuring these things out takes time.
I changed a bit in terms of cause prioritization, as I had downranked the loose category of “Mental Health”, but met two coaches who brought some novel arguments to light, like the idea that being a therapist specifically for EAs could be a particularly effective pathway forward if one feels they have a good personal fit for therapy (which I think I might), which made me relatively uprank mental health as a potential career pathway again. I’d like to dig further into this (i.e. do existing paradigms & evidence indicate that having a therapist more similar to the patient in thoughts and convictions would be incredibly helpful in improving the patients welfare?) and hope to potentially eventually make a shortform.
By far my best moments came in office hours after talks and 1-on-1s, so I would highly recommend prioritizing those over talks, based on my experience and what seemed like an experience many others shared. (props specifically to those who organized the Mental Health Meetup, I thought that had a fantastic format and should be replicated in the future).
All in all, it was a really cool experience, and I was really grateful for EA for putting this on, and creating the space to try to bring us more together. Just got into EAGx Berkely and am excited to see how an in person is relative to the virtual format, will possibly update this post with thoughts on that afterwards.
Super late to this, but still (probably) worth adding a few thoughts I think, as they don’t seem to be present in the below.
I was surprised at just how diverse the people I met were in their journeys with EA. I met one person who had learned about EA just earlier that month and hadn’t engaged beyond reading a few articles, while also sitting down to talk to people experienced and incredibly active in the space like Michael Aird. While this created some problems (some of the talks seemed geared towards a much less familiar audience) it also was wonderful for helping encourage against siloing EA based on experience.
I would say that the biggest, most important message I took away from my conversations is that one shouldn’t put as much pressure as a lot of young EA members do on getting it right from their first job. I heard from many people further along in their career that their first job was often unrelated and not an imperative part of finding their way to their later effective career, generally reminding me that like other important aspects of lives, figuring these things out takes time.
I changed a bit in terms of cause prioritization, as I had downranked the loose category of “Mental Health”, but met two coaches who brought some novel arguments to light, like the idea that being a therapist specifically for EAs could be a particularly effective pathway forward if one feels they have a good personal fit for therapy (which I think I might), which made me relatively uprank mental health as a potential career pathway again. I’d like to dig further into this (i.e. do existing paradigms & evidence indicate that having a therapist more similar to the patient in thoughts and convictions would be incredibly helpful in improving the patients welfare?) and hope to potentially eventually make a shortform.
By far my best moments came in office hours after talks and 1-on-1s, so I would highly recommend prioritizing those over talks, based on my experience and what seemed like an experience many others shared. (props specifically to those who organized the Mental Health Meetup, I thought that had a fantastic format and should be replicated in the future).
All in all, it was a really cool experience, and I was really grateful for EA for putting this on, and creating the space to try to bring us more together. Just got into EAGx Berkely and am excited to see how an in person is relative to the virtual format, will possibly update this post with thoughts on that afterwards.