To reiterate an offer that I made last week: if you want to hear contributions and suggestions for your career planning, you can crowdsource these here. If you prefer privacy, you may like to use a different username from your usual one.
Firstly, thanks for this offer Ryan.
I greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my comment and proffer their insights. I frequently read this forum but this is my debut post. Essentially, I am approaching a kind of career cross road and am unsure of which direction I should travel.
I have completed a science degree and majored in applied mathematics- I averaged a high credit because of a lack of effort. I believe this average prevents me from entry into relevant PhD studies with most universities. In roughly 2-3 months I will have completed a Master’s in Teaching. At the same time as doing the Master’s course I have also just commenced a Bachelor of Arts degree and would like to focus my studies there mainly on philosophy and politics.
By the second half of this year, when I have graduated from the Master’s in Teaching I feel like my main options to decide from are:
(1) Maths and science teaching whilst studying philosophy and politics part time.
(2) Going 100% into studying philosophy and politics.
(3) Going into a PhD program relating to education.
I can certainly see myself doing any of these.
However, during 2014 I became obsessed with philosophy particularly practical ethics. The result of this, is that I strongly feel that my career should be doing work that makes a large contribution to increasing good or work that makes a large contribution to reducing evil. Ideally both. I currently don’t think these options satisfy this career path as much as they could.
At the moment I feel that the best way to achieve such a career, would be to have a career dominated by the question ‘how to do the most good?’ And that I should therefore begin work towards a career in effective altruism. Yet, I am not sure where I could do be of the most help and even what would be the best preparation. I can see myself being an advocate of effective altruism, completing charity evaluation research, starting a non-profit… honestly I am open to most things.
As such I feel like the option that I will take is
(4) Completing some degree to best prepare me for this career. For instance, An Arts/Business double degree focusing mainly on Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
I think that my main question is what degree should I take in order to achieve this career? But I would also be more than interested to hear any opinions on my current situation as well, particularly whether I have missed out on possible options and which of the first 3 options would be the best to go with.
Hey Kieran. Always glad to see people considering personal decisions from an altruistic point of view, and it’s good to have your contribution on the site. Your situation is interesting because it includes some education in fields that are fairly different—maths, teaching and arts, and all of which offer some safe options, but none of which is of such obviously high impact that it blows away the others.
To get more engaged in comparing these options, it’d be valuable to know what kinds of causes you’re interested in. If you want to be involved in steering science and tech, then that’s going to give a different answer from if you’re more interested in alleviating global poverty.
One preliminary point to make is that although effective altruism often comes from a place of interest in philosophy and politics, the field in which you achieve a practical impact need not be the same one in which you decide that it’s important. Basically, I love philosophy, but I’ve become a bit disillusioned with it as far as influencing the world goes. I think only a few elite philosophers (the Peter Singers and Nick Bostrom of the world) actually manage to turn their study into practical insight. As for policy, I would be interested to hear whether you’re interested in running as an elected representative, joining a think tank, staying in academia, or doing some combination thereof. Similarly, with the PhD program in education, it seems useful to ask whether you would eventually become a teacher, or whether you would try to become an academic researcher in education. With regard to the arts/business double-degree option, it’s also interesting to think about what you’d be trying to achieve through that. Business might mean you’re thinking about earning to donate to charity, yet it’s only one of many ways to get an income.
In terms of ‘what degree you should take for this career’, I would say it depends how you want to integrate effective altruism with your career. There are a lot of ways of doing this, and you’ve probably seen that 80,000 Hours name a bunch on their website.
Another way of get more concrete would be to think about what careers are common in your extended family, and why you would or wouldn’t like those things.
So I think this could be the start of a longer and very helpful conversation
At the moment I would say that in descending order that I am most interested in reducing animal suffering, alleviating global poverty, AI research and then Existential risk. Although I do find it hard to rank them so this order may change in the future.
I agree with you that only the best of the best philosophers are high impact, but I still feel as though a solid grounding in philosophical thought will be very helpful to me making an impact no matter what field I go into.
To answer a few of your questions, I would say that I am not that interested in running for an elected representative position currently. A think tank would be more interesting but I don’t think it would be an excellent personal fit. If I did complete a PhD program in education I would try to become an academic researcher. Regarding the arts/business double degree I would be most interested in starting my own charity or non-profit.
Thankyou for the link to 80,000 hours site. I am currently getting career coaching from them and I would highly recommend this process to anyone who is unsure of their career path.
As for the extended family jobs, I love my family but I think that they are most helpful in determining what not to do. The best description I can think of would be in David Graeber’s “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit jobs.” Tried to link to this article but couldn’t find a way...
So far, I only have a couple of thoughts, and they’re fairly general:
As much as I enjoy philosophy, I suspect that it would be less helpful than maths, physics, computer science, commerce, economics and most other academic subjects for most people, in most professional domains.
Starting an arts/business double degree sounds dubious as far as starting your own charity or nonprofit goes. If I wanted to start an effective nonprofit, I would be more inclined to work for one, or to get relevant commercial experience in a relevant area like sales, health or elsewhere.
Just to throw a plausible example out there (not a firm recommendation), have you considered data science? What’s good or bad about it? What other career have you or haven’t you considered, and why?
Also, if you click “Show help”, you can see how to make a link—with square and round brackets.
You make a good point about how philosophy will most likely be of limited use in a number of professional domains. I do think there is a distinction though between what is useful in these professional domains and what is useful for a career that focuses on doing the most good. In the latter I think that a degree in philosophy would be valuable, I mean at heart this quest is deeply philosophical. Further, my impression is that a number of significant members of the effective altruism movement have strong backgrounds in philosophy and I could see myself in a career within academia relating to this field. Although because I also enjoy philosophy I may be overestimating its importance so that I can justify formally studying it.
Yeah computer science and economics are certainly areas that I rank highly. These areas obviously give possibilities of high earning careers, but I don’t see myself as being satisfied with the earning to give approach. I would be more interested because in others ways they would provide a lot of career capital both in terms of getting towards my current vision while also keeping my options open. I would say presently I would be more inclined to computer science because I think that there would be more freedom there. Would you agree?
Thanks for your views about starting a non-profit, they were both helpful and informative. Do you have a view on the best degree to prepare for starting a non-profit? Or am I coming at this situation from the wrong angle? I think that the connections made at a university would be very helpful for starting a non-profit especially if this is combined with interning at non-profits over summer breaks.
I think that I recognise the broader point that you are making with your data science example (not trying to sound smug, I struggle with tone via this format) and I agree that I am still in the early stages of redirecting my career and could perhaps benefit from a more rigorous approach. As for data science itself, it would provide good potential earning possibilities and skills that will be very useful within a number of different fields because the sector of data will only expand. However, I think that the role impact of a data scientist is relatively low, that it would be too confining, would not really help me achieve my vision, has a quite high cost associated with its exploration and that therefore my overall job satisfaction would be limited.
Thankyou again Ryan. This has been very helpful to me. What are your thoughts?
Hey Kieran, I think that the main reason that philosophy is common in effective altruists is that effective altruism is, in-part, a philosophical idea, rather than as evidence that we are driven to study philosophy for its altruistic value. Rather, I think that effective altruists have left philosophy very commonly, and have entered it quite rarely. Obviously, that’s true for people in general, because there are more degrees in philosophy than jobs, but I suppose that’s just my point anyway...
Computer science and economics are both large fields with a lot of freedom, although computer science leads to better non-academic jobs.
For nonprofits in your interest areas, I’m not sure that a degree is very helpful, although software or business are generally pretty useful.
I’m not trying to make any wider point with the data science example. Rather, I’m just trying to get a map of what you do or don’t like about certain work-activities or certain jobs in order to apply those characteristics to other jobs. It’s like ‘sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!’ It’s just about getting a concrete idea of what you prefer to be doing!
And that’d be my final advice—I think it’ll be important to consider what concrete activities you actually want to do, and what aspect of ‘achieving your vision’ you can get paid for.
To reiterate an offer that I made last week: if you want to hear contributions and suggestions for your career planning, you can crowdsource these here. If you prefer privacy, you may like to use a different username from your usual one.
Firstly, thanks for this offer Ryan. I greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my comment and proffer their insights. I frequently read this forum but this is my debut post. Essentially, I am approaching a kind of career cross road and am unsure of which direction I should travel.
I have completed a science degree and majored in applied mathematics- I averaged a high credit because of a lack of effort. I believe this average prevents me from entry into relevant PhD studies with most universities. In roughly 2-3 months I will have completed a Master’s in Teaching. At the same time as doing the Master’s course I have also just commenced a Bachelor of Arts degree and would like to focus my studies there mainly on philosophy and politics.
By the second half of this year, when I have graduated from the Master’s in Teaching I feel like my main options to decide from are: (1) Maths and science teaching whilst studying philosophy and politics part time. (2) Going 100% into studying philosophy and politics. (3) Going into a PhD program relating to education.
I can certainly see myself doing any of these.
However, during 2014 I became obsessed with philosophy particularly practical ethics. The result of this, is that I strongly feel that my career should be doing work that makes a large contribution to increasing good or work that makes a large contribution to reducing evil. Ideally both. I currently don’t think these options satisfy this career path as much as they could.
At the moment I feel that the best way to achieve such a career, would be to have a career dominated by the question ‘how to do the most good?’ And that I should therefore begin work towards a career in effective altruism. Yet, I am not sure where I could do be of the most help and even what would be the best preparation. I can see myself being an advocate of effective altruism, completing charity evaluation research, starting a non-profit… honestly I am open to most things.
As such I feel like the option that I will take is (4) Completing some degree to best prepare me for this career. For instance, An Arts/Business double degree focusing mainly on Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
I think that my main question is what degree should I take in order to achieve this career? But I would also be more than interested to hear any opinions on my current situation as well, particularly whether I have missed out on possible options and which of the first 3 options would be the best to go with.
Thank you again to those who respond.
Kieran
Hey Kieran. Always glad to see people considering personal decisions from an altruistic point of view, and it’s good to have your contribution on the site. Your situation is interesting because it includes some education in fields that are fairly different—maths, teaching and arts, and all of which offer some safe options, but none of which is of such obviously high impact that it blows away the others.
To get more engaged in comparing these options, it’d be valuable to know what kinds of causes you’re interested in. If you want to be involved in steering science and tech, then that’s going to give a different answer from if you’re more interested in alleviating global poverty.
One preliminary point to make is that although effective altruism often comes from a place of interest in philosophy and politics, the field in which you achieve a practical impact need not be the same one in which you decide that it’s important. Basically, I love philosophy, but I’ve become a bit disillusioned with it as far as influencing the world goes. I think only a few elite philosophers (the Peter Singers and Nick Bostrom of the world) actually manage to turn their study into practical insight. As for policy, I would be interested to hear whether you’re interested in running as an elected representative, joining a think tank, staying in academia, or doing some combination thereof. Similarly, with the PhD program in education, it seems useful to ask whether you would eventually become a teacher, or whether you would try to become an academic researcher in education. With regard to the arts/business double-degree option, it’s also interesting to think about what you’d be trying to achieve through that. Business might mean you’re thinking about earning to donate to charity, yet it’s only one of many ways to get an income.
In terms of ‘what degree you should take for this career’, I would say it depends how you want to integrate effective altruism with your career. There are a lot of ways of doing this, and you’ve probably seen that 80,000 Hours name a bunch on their website.
Another way of get more concrete would be to think about what careers are common in your extended family, and why you would or wouldn’t like those things.
So I think this could be the start of a longer and very helpful conversation
Hi Ryan, Grateful for your insight.
At the moment I would say that in descending order that I am most interested in reducing animal suffering, alleviating global poverty, AI research and then Existential risk. Although I do find it hard to rank them so this order may change in the future. I agree with you that only the best of the best philosophers are high impact, but I still feel as though a solid grounding in philosophical thought will be very helpful to me making an impact no matter what field I go into.
To answer a few of your questions, I would say that I am not that interested in running for an elected representative position currently. A think tank would be more interesting but I don’t think it would be an excellent personal fit. If I did complete a PhD program in education I would try to become an academic researcher. Regarding the arts/business double degree I would be most interested in starting my own charity or non-profit. Thankyou for the link to 80,000 hours site. I am currently getting career coaching from them and I would highly recommend this process to anyone who is unsure of their career path.
As for the extended family jobs, I love my family but I think that they are most helpful in determining what not to do. The best description I can think of would be in David Graeber’s “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit jobs.” Tried to link to this article but couldn’t find a way...
Please let me know your thoughts.
Hey Kieran,
So far, I only have a couple of thoughts, and they’re fairly general:
As much as I enjoy philosophy, I suspect that it would be less helpful than maths, physics, computer science, commerce, economics and most other academic subjects for most people, in most professional domains.
Starting an arts/business double degree sounds dubious as far as starting your own charity or nonprofit goes. If I wanted to start an effective nonprofit, I would be more inclined to work for one, or to get relevant commercial experience in a relevant area like sales, health or elsewhere.
Just to throw a plausible example out there (not a firm recommendation), have you considered data science? What’s good or bad about it? What other career have you or haven’t you considered, and why?
Also, if you click “Show help”, you can see how to make a link—with square and round brackets.
Hi Ryan,
You make a good point about how philosophy will most likely be of limited use in a number of professional domains. I do think there is a distinction though between what is useful in these professional domains and what is useful for a career that focuses on doing the most good. In the latter I think that a degree in philosophy would be valuable, I mean at heart this quest is deeply philosophical. Further, my impression is that a number of significant members of the effective altruism movement have strong backgrounds in philosophy and I could see myself in a career within academia relating to this field. Although because I also enjoy philosophy I may be overestimating its importance so that I can justify formally studying it.
Yeah computer science and economics are certainly areas that I rank highly. These areas obviously give possibilities of high earning careers, but I don’t see myself as being satisfied with the earning to give approach. I would be more interested because in others ways they would provide a lot of career capital both in terms of getting towards my current vision while also keeping my options open. I would say presently I would be more inclined to computer science because I think that there would be more freedom there. Would you agree?
Thanks for your views about starting a non-profit, they were both helpful and informative. Do you have a view on the best degree to prepare for starting a non-profit? Or am I coming at this situation from the wrong angle? I think that the connections made at a university would be very helpful for starting a non-profit especially if this is combined with interning at non-profits over summer breaks.
I think that I recognise the broader point that you are making with your data science example (not trying to sound smug, I struggle with tone via this format) and I agree that I am still in the early stages of redirecting my career and could perhaps benefit from a more rigorous approach. As for data science itself, it would provide good potential earning possibilities and skills that will be very useful within a number of different fields because the sector of data will only expand. However, I think that the role impact of a data scientist is relatively low, that it would be too confining, would not really help me achieve my vision, has a quite high cost associated with its exploration and that therefore my overall job satisfaction would be limited.
Thankyou again Ryan. This has been very helpful to me. What are your thoughts?
Hey Kieran, I think that the main reason that philosophy is common in effective altruists is that effective altruism is, in-part, a philosophical idea, rather than as evidence that we are driven to study philosophy for its altruistic value. Rather, I think that effective altruists have left philosophy very commonly, and have entered it quite rarely. Obviously, that’s true for people in general, because there are more degrees in philosophy than jobs, but I suppose that’s just my point anyway...
Computer science and economics are both large fields with a lot of freedom, although computer science leads to better non-academic jobs.
For nonprofits in your interest areas, I’m not sure that a degree is very helpful, although software or business are generally pretty useful.
I’m not trying to make any wider point with the data science example. Rather, I’m just trying to get a map of what you do or don’t like about certain work-activities or certain jobs in order to apply those characteristics to other jobs. It’s like ‘sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!’ It’s just about getting a concrete idea of what you prefer to be doing!
And that’d be my final advice—I think it’ll be important to consider what concrete activities you actually want to do, and what aspect of ‘achieving your vision’ you can get paid for.