Hey Timothy, there are a lot of things you could do that I think would be really valuable!
Participate in the virtual Stanford Existential Risks Conference on February 26 and 27. Apply by February 22 – it only takes about 3 minutes to apply.
Participate in a virtual program by EA Virtual Programs. A program involves about 2–3 hours of time commitment per week for eight weeks. I might recommend starting off with the Introductory EA Program (and if you have time, also the Precipice Reading Group), and then the In-Depth EA Program. After you’ve participated in a program, you can start facilitating for it, which is really helpful for having people more engaged with EA!
EA Cambridge is currently running virtual AGI Safety Fundamentals Program, among other programs, but applications are now closed. You can register interest and get notified when these programs re-open in the future.
Apply for career advising from 80,000 Hours. Highly recommended if you think analytically about how to maximize the impact of your career and are open to working on addressing top longtermist problems (e.g., AI safety, biosecurity, global priorities research). Besides providing advice for what career paths to consider, they also try their best to connect you with other EAs working in relevant areas.
Apply to facilitate for LEAF in Oxford, UK for 1–4 weeks in August. LEAF is “a Summer programme introducing intelligent and altruistically motivated 16-18 year olds to ideas about how they can contribute to tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems, especially those that might have lasting effects on the long-term future.” Applications to facilitate are due on February 27. See Jamie Harris’s post about this in Effective Altruism Job Postings.
Apply for a summer internship at the Global Challenges Project in Berkeley, California. Applications are due on March 13. I’m not sure if the application form is public but you can shoot them an email if you’d be interested.
Apply to the Happier Lives Institute Summer Research Fellowship (deadline 20th March). “The fellowship provides an opportunity for students and recent graduates to gain hands-on research experience and receive personal mentoring from HLI’s research team. Fellows will be paid $500 a week ($3,500 in total) for the seven-week fellowship period. The fellowship is fully remote and you can choose your own work hours (outside of scheduled calls). Applications close on Sunday, March 20.”
If the university you’re going to doesn’t already have an EA group, consider starting a group through the University Group Accelerator Program or advertising the virtual Intro EA Program. I used to think it would be super hard for me to start an EA group, but I think it’s quite doable if you have enough free time to run or advertise an intro fellowship. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about this.
I think self-studying would also be highly valuable. For example, if you’re interested in working in AI safety, then studying machine learning (especially reinforcement learning and natural language processing). I’m happy to provide some recommendations here.
You can also apply to general non-EA internships for the purpose of building experience.
Hey Timothy, there are a lot of things you could do that I think would be really valuable!
Participate in the virtual Stanford Existential Risks Conference on February 26 and 27. Apply by February 22 – it only takes about 3 minutes to apply.
Participate in a virtual program by EA Virtual Programs. A program involves about 2–3 hours of time commitment per week for eight weeks. I might recommend starting off with the Introductory EA Program (and if you have time, also the Precipice Reading Group), and then the In-Depth EA Program. After you’ve participated in a program, you can start facilitating for it, which is really helpful for having people more engaged with EA!
EA Cambridge is currently running virtual AGI Safety Fundamentals Program, among other programs, but applications are now closed. You can register interest and get notified when these programs re-open in the future.
Apply for an EAGx conference near you.
Apply for career advising from 80,000 Hours. Highly recommended if you think analytically about how to maximize the impact of your career and are open to working on addressing top longtermist problems (e.g., AI safety, biosecurity, global priorities research). Besides providing advice for what career paths to consider, they also try their best to connect you with other EAs working in relevant areas.
Apply to facilitate for LEAF in Oxford, UK for 1–4 weeks in August. LEAF is “a Summer programme introducing intelligent and altruistically motivated 16-18 year olds to ideas about how they can contribute to tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems, especially those that might have lasting effects on the long-term future.” Applications to facilitate are due on February 27. See Jamie Harris’s post about this in Effective Altruism Job Postings.
Apply to the CERI Summer Research Fellowship and Swiss Existential Risk Initiative Summer Research Fellowship
Apply for a summer internship at the Global Challenges Project in Berkeley, California. Applications are due on March 13. I’m not sure if the application form is public but you can shoot them an email if you’d be interested.
Apply to the Happier Lives Institute Summer Research Fellowship (deadline 20th March). “The fellowship provides an opportunity for students and recent graduates to gain hands-on research experience and receive personal mentoring from HLI’s research team. Fellows will be paid $500 a week ($3,500 in total) for the seven-week fellowship period. The fellowship is fully remote and you can choose your own work hours (outside of scheduled calls). Applications close on Sunday, March 20.”
Apply for an (unpaid) internship at Training for Good.
Apply to other internships listed on the EA Internships Board.
If the university you’re going to doesn’t already have an EA group, consider starting a group through the University Group Accelerator Program or advertising the virtual Intro EA Program. I used to think it would be super hard for me to start an EA group, but I think it’s quite doable if you have enough free time to run or advertise an intro fellowship. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about this.
I think self-studying would also be highly valuable. For example, if you’re interested in working in AI safety, then studying machine learning (especially reinforcement learning and natural language processing). I’m happy to provide some recommendations here.
You can also apply to general non-EA internships for the purpose of building experience.
Wow thanks for all the recommendations, i’ll definitely apply for some of those programs. And I’ll apply for the career counseling. :)