This isn’t exactly related to the post, but I am a little bit wary about the connotation of more students should have internships / work experience at EA Orgs rather than corporate roles.
I talked to some EAs that say that it’s good for EA uni students to get a job outside of EA first. This makes me think that the issue of EA Orgs not having that many uni interns aren’t actually a big problem.
Why it may be good to pursue a corporate role:
Mistakes made earlier in my career will be much more low stakes
Experiencing the world outside the EA bubble
Skills such as dealing with people in a workplace, learning how a company runs things are transferrable
Financial independence from EA
Other personal reasons (financial independence in general, funding for self-improvement stuff like coaching and good therapy)
On the other hand, there are good reasons for EA Interships
EA internships can be good for community building because it makes uni students more excited about EA!
students can test fit for wide variety of cause areas sooner rather than later.
I totally agree there is a lot of value in going corporate first. I recommend this route to many people! But it does seem unfortunate to not have the choice between EA/corporate, or have the choice set up pretty badly.
This isn’t exactly related to the post, but I am a little bit wary about the connotation of more students should have internships / work experience at EA Orgs rather than corporate roles.
I talked to some EAs that say that it’s good for EA uni students to get a job outside of EA first. This makes me think that the issue of EA Orgs not having that many uni interns aren’t actually a big problem.
Why it may be good to pursue a corporate role:
Mistakes made earlier in my career will be much more low stakes
Experiencing the world outside the EA bubble
Skills such as dealing with people in a workplace, learning how a company runs things are transferrable
Financial independence from EA
Other personal reasons (financial independence in general, funding for self-improvement stuff like coaching and good therapy)
On the other hand, there are good reasons for EA Interships
EA internships can be good for community building because it makes uni students more excited about EA!
students can test fit for wide variety of cause areas sooner rather than later.
Depending on what you are interested in doing, the skills might be less transferrable (From Charity Entrepreneurship: “Our data shows that a founder who starts now and runs a charity for three years will outperform (at running a charity) someone who does two years work experience in a consultancy and then starts running a charity for a year.” -https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xHC9AYLGjMoZbEWkX/ce-who-underrates-their-likelihood-of-success-why-applying)
I totally agree there is a lot of value in going corporate first. I recommend this route to many people! But it does seem unfortunate to not have the choice between EA/corporate, or have the choice set up pretty badly.