I’m a senior in high school. I’ve been aware of EA since 2022, but only really gotten more involved in the last 6 months (went to EAG).
My background is in ops/entrepreneurshp (organized hackathons for HS students) and software engineering (web dev and systems, multiple internships). I’m also a top Quizbowl player in my area, meaning that I have experience in learning large amounts of information (history).
TLDR: High school senior looking for (perhaps gap year) work, volunteering, projects or mentorship.
Skills & background: I’ve been aware of EA since 2022. In the last six months, I’ve gotten more involved (ex: went to EAG). My background is in ops/entrepreneurshp (organized hackathons for HS students for 1.5yrs, advertised & fundraised) and software engineering (5yrs of experience with web dev and systems, two internships). I’m also a top Quizbowl (5 yrs, 4th ranked in SoCal) player in my area, meaning that I have experience in learning large amounts of information (history).
Right now, I’m especially interested in digital sentience and interpretability (albeit with no experience in the area).
Location/remote: San Diego, California; I’m willing to relocate.
Availability & type of work: Part time or full time. I could work full-time from now until August, when I start college [1]. I’m open to anything suitable—paid work, a mentored research project, volunteering, etc.
Resume/CV/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bolunthompson
Email/contact: Contact me via direct message or at abolunthompson[at]gmail[dot]com
Other notes: If you don’t know if I’d be interested, contact me anyways! I’m looking to explore and build general aptitudes (especially research and information security).
I’m most likely going to UCLA, so I can’t take a gap year. However, I’m happy to drop out for a promising opportunity.
I second Nathan’s answer, but besides that here are a few programs specifically for HS students you might be interested in.
SPARC (deadline closed for this year)
ESPR
PAIR
Non-Trivial
I’d also recommend applying to those university programs! When I was talking with the organizers of those programs at EAG, n=3 seemed to believe it’d be perfectly appropriate for me to apply. I suspect other programs would also (major caveat: may only apply to non-residential programs for <18 for legal reasons).
(also, Yarrow B’s answer is a joke, but, anecdotally, a major failure mode of young EAs are becoming too dedicated and sacrificing all their other interests and such for it. )