Executive summary: A young person’s journey into the effective altruism (EA) community through the Leaf program helped them explore new ideas, gain valuable skills and mentorship, and ultimately change their career plans from medicine to biomedical science.
Key points:
The author discovered EA concepts and techniques through the Leaf program, which challenged their thinking and exposed them to new ideas.
Key EA concepts that resonated with the author include effective giving, the importance of evidence and productive disagreement, and the 80⁄20 principle.
Interactions with mentors and learning about different cause areas influenced the author’s decision to pivot from a planned medical career to biomedical science.
The Leaf residential program provided valuable opportunities to engage with peers, experts and facilitators to further explore and critique EA ideas.
The author views EA primarily as a question and set of techniques rather than an identity, and has some reservations about the EA community itself.
The author plans to pursue biomedical research and continue engaging with EA-adjacent opportunities, with the long-term goal of having a positive impact in the bioscience field.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: A young person’s journey into the effective altruism (EA) community through the Leaf program helped them explore new ideas, gain valuable skills and mentorship, and ultimately change their career plans from medicine to biomedical science.
Key points:
The author discovered EA concepts and techniques through the Leaf program, which challenged their thinking and exposed them to new ideas.
Key EA concepts that resonated with the author include effective giving, the importance of evidence and productive disagreement, and the 80⁄20 principle.
Interactions with mentors and learning about different cause areas influenced the author’s decision to pivot from a planned medical career to biomedical science.
The Leaf residential program provided valuable opportunities to engage with peers, experts and facilitators to further explore and critique EA ideas.
The author views EA primarily as a question and set of techniques rather than an identity, and has some reservations about the EA community itself.
The author plans to pursue biomedical research and continue engaging with EA-adjacent opportunities, with the long-term goal of having a positive impact in the bioscience field.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.