I’m hoping to get some suggestions for possible college degree/career paths.
I’m 32 years old, living in Columbus, Ohio, USA. I would like to go to college with the ultimate goal of a career dedicated to the prevention of extreme suffering in any and all sentient beings. Something similar to the mission statement of The Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering:
… working towards a more compassionate global society where no one—human or non-human—experiences terrible pain and suffering that can be prevented or alleviated. We promote solutions to specific causes of suffering and change in societal decision-making to make the prevention of suffering the highest priority.
Whether I’d do something with policy, activism, research, or something else, I’m not sure. I just don’t want a job where I’m sitting at a computer all day, for my mental and physical health.
I’d like a degree that would allow me to initially get a high-paying job, possibly unrelated to altruism, so that I can build up my personal savings. Then at some point, I’d pivot into a non-profit related to the above goals, with the help of my degree and maybe work experience up to that point.
Of course, the career shouldn’t become obsolete due to AI soon.
Possibly relevant details about me:
I like logical, black and white thinking. For example coding or trying to diagnose a mechanical issue with an appliance. Creative work, such as writing essays, is kind of scary and hard for me.
Could I please get your feedback/suggestions for a degree/career path that would be suitable for me? Thanks!
My impression is that organisations working on S-risks (what you seem to be concerned about) tend to focus on preventing suffering of digital beings/minds (e.g. CLR). If you agree with this focus, technical computer science knowledge of how digital beings might come to “suffer” seems useful; philosophical understanding of what constitutes suffering would probably be useful too.
Would like to caveat that regardless of the cause you are interested in, almost all organisations would need some expertise in strategy, management, operations, comms etc. If your interests are in such topics, you might do better studying them. Might also want to consider taking advice from 80000 hours!
Came here to suggest talking to 80k hours. +1 on that! Even if you don’t schedule a call with them, they have really high-quality and in-depth guides that you can look through yourself. :)
~ Saul
It’s CLR (Centre for Long-Term Risk) that your referring to and thinking of, not CLTR (Centre for Long Term Resilience)
Computer science and/or business focuses may be good for me! I might also schedule a conversation with 80000 hours. Thanks!
I’d suggest that you consider computer science and business (with a focus on project management if at all possible). A big focus for you will just be building skills and establishing a good track record of doing impressive things.
Computer science meshes well with your logical, black-and-white thinking. It also tends to allow a wide range of careers/professions (site reliability engineering, database management, front-end design, and others) depending on where you choose to focus. It also provides a lot of flexibility in terms of industry, since organizations of all types need people to design and run various systems related to information.
Business (and especially project management) is (very simplified) “getting things done.” This is a skillset that is very useful in a wide range of organizations, regardless of whether they are for-profit or non-profit. If you can see yourself being a good communicator who tends to keep things organized, try it out.
Regardless of the field/area you choose, I recommend trying it out a little before committing to a full degree program. You could take one or two courses at your local university or community college, try a few MOOCs in the subject, do some Sophia.org courses to dip your toe in the subject.
I think that it might be hard to find good[1] jobs that don’t involve “sitting at a computer all day.” Most good jobs involve quite a bit of time using a computer.
Obvious caveats:
These suggestions are off the top of my head, without having done hours of dedicated research.
You generally shouldn’t make major life choices based on the advice of some strangers on the internet who know almost nothing about your life. If you don’t have any friends or family who could give you good advice, try finding career counselors or reaching out to new people to seek advice.
I don’t know all the details of who you are, what your preferences, etc. To the extent that you are different than my mental image of you, my advice might be wildly off the mark.
The world may be somewhat different when you are using your degree professionally than it has been for the past 10 to 15 years.
I’m using “good” in a pretty fuzzy way, but think of it vaguely like some combination of paying enough money, not having to much risk of physical damage to your body, having not too much stress, and having decently good motivation. Colleagues contribute to this, how much control you have over the work you do contribute to this, company culture contributes, etc.
I like these suggestions. It fits with the suggestions of the other commenter.
Good idea. I was hoping to start at Uni in the fall, which doesn’t give me a lot of time to take trial classes before then, but I’ll look around. Edit: Oh, I assumed it was too late to schedule summer classes at the local college, but I guess not.
Thanks for the advice!