EA groups often get criticized by university students for “not doing anything.” The answer usually given (which I think is mostly correct!) is that the vast majority of your impact will come from your career, and university is about gaining the skills you need to be able to do that. I usually say that EA will help you make an impact throughout your life, including after you leave college; the actions people usually think of as “doing things” in college (like volunteering), though they may be admirable, don’t.
Which is why I find it strange that the post doesn’t mention the possibility of becoming a lifeguard.
In this story, the lifeguards aren’t noticing. Maybe they’re complacent. Maybe they don’t care about their jobs very much. Maybe they just aren’t very good at noticing. Maybe they aren’t actually lifeguards at all, and they just pretend to be lifeguards. Maybe the entire concept of “lifeguarding” is just a farce.
But if it’s really just that they aren’t noticing, and you are noticing, you should think about whether it really makes sense to jump into the water and start saving children. Yes, the children are drowning, but no, you aren’t qualified to save them. You don’t know how to swim that well, you don’t know how to carry children out of the water, and you certainly don’t know how to do CPR. If you really want to save lives, go get some lifeguard training and come back and save far more children.
But maybe the children are dying now, and this is the only time they’re dying, so once you become a lifeguard it will be too late to do anything. Then go try saving children now!
Or maybe going to lifeguard school will destroy your ability to notice drowning children. In that case, maybe you should try to invent lifeguarding from scratch.
But unless all expertise is useless and worthless, which it might be in some cases, it’s at least worth considering whether you should be focused on becoming a good lifeguard.
EA groups often get criticized by university students for “not doing anything.” The answer usually given (which I think is mostly correct!) is that the vast majority of your impact will come from your career, and university is about gaining the skills you need to be able to do that. I usually say that EA will help you make an impact throughout your life, including after you leave college; the actions people usually think of as “doing things” in college (like volunteering), though they may be admirable, don’t.
Which is why I find it strange that the post doesn’t mention the possibility of becoming a lifeguard.
In this story, the lifeguards aren’t noticing. Maybe they’re complacent. Maybe they don’t care about their jobs very much. Maybe they just aren’t very good at noticing. Maybe they aren’t actually lifeguards at all, and they just pretend to be lifeguards. Maybe the entire concept of “lifeguarding” is just a farce.
But if it’s really just that they aren’t noticing, and you are noticing, you should think about whether it really makes sense to jump into the water and start saving children. Yes, the children are drowning, but no, you aren’t qualified to save them. You don’t know how to swim that well, you don’t know how to carry children out of the water, and you certainly don’t know how to do CPR. If you really want to save lives, go get some lifeguard training and come back and save far more children.
But maybe the children are dying now, and this is the only time they’re dying, so once you become a lifeguard it will be too late to do anything. Then go try saving children now!
Or maybe going to lifeguard school will destroy your ability to notice drowning children. In that case, maybe you should try to invent lifeguarding from scratch.
But unless all expertise is useless and worthless, which it might be in some cases, it’s at least worth considering whether you should be focused on becoming a good lifeguard.