I lead CEAâs University Groups team. We often post updates on the Forum about what weâre up to, and are always happy to answer questions!
I helped start & ran Positive Impact Society Erasmus (PISE) in 2020-2022, and was co-lead for EAGxRotterdam 2022. Iâm happy to answer any questions about those experiences!
Thanks, those are helpful thoughts! Just to clarify: my excitement about APA roles shouldnât be read to mean that I think other roles are likely less impactful. Itâs super hard to assess it from the outside!
That hypothesis for the Commission could most certaintly be true. We talked to three EA-aligned folks in the Commission and I think all three of them had pretty different experiences, from âI donât think Iâve had any impact in my two years at the Commissionâ to someone who thought heâd influenced quite some things positively (I hope Iâm not misrepresenting them)
For think tank /â NGO work specifically, I annoyingly got food poisining on the day where we had various experts from NGOs visit, so was unable to take their perspectives into account. I know some other people who were in the program are reading thisâmaybe they can share some thoughts on this!
Iâm pretty unsure about impact via Council or member states. I also didnât get much clarity on secondments. We didnât discuss them much because the process to be sent to Brussels by a member state is different in every country
You can maybe pull from this AMA Peter Singer did on the Forum; thereâs some unanswered questions there
Intro fellowship sign-ups at EA groups participating in Early OSP doubled this Fall.
CEAâs University Groups Team is increasingly focusing its marginal efforts on piloting more involved support to a subset of EA university groups. This pilot program â Early OSP or EOSP[1] â includes early mentorship (starting in the summer), a semester planning retreat in August, and a workshop around EAG Boston, among other initiatives.
With the Fall semester now complete, we are analyzing initial outcomes. One standout result is that intro fellowship applications at EOSP groups averaged 32 per group, up from 14 the prior year[2]. Although we lack full baseline data, there are promising indicators â two groups, for instance, went from zero applications in Fall 2023 to meaningful engagement this year.
Of course, this is just one metric among the many that matter[3]. It is, however, an encouraging signal, that weâre hoping to build on as we continue to build out principles-first EA.
Early OSP (EOSP) is modeled after our regular Organizer Support Program. EOSP kicked off with organizers from these groups: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UChicago, UPenn, Oxford, and Cambridge. They have been anonymized on the graph.
Thank you to everyone who made this happen, especially the group organizers at all these universities!
Weâre still collecting data on other metrics, and hope to share a more all-things-considered take in the future.
Nice stuff!
Does this in any way relate to the course (and fast track) BlueDot announced recently?
Iâd also be keen to hear more about this!
Thank you for writing this! I wish I had internalized some of these points more while I was at university, and guess others will feel the same.
One thing in particular that I recognized is viewing 80,000 Hours (and the EA community more broadly) as offering definitive answers, rather than tools and questions. Looking back, I realize I maybe fell into that mindset. I almost expected that if I just followed the ârightâ path they laid out and worked as hard as I could, Iâd maximize my impact. That was, of course, a very soothing thought, drastically simplifying the complexity of my career choice. But it was also very wrong, and Iâm grateful that this quick take is now there to point this out :)
Just wanted to bump this comment, Iâm interested
I came across this post because of Wrapped this year. This was such a nice story, thank you @atb !
Sent you a DM! Sorry about the delay here, I didnât see the notificationsâI might post from my personal Forum account next time to prevent situations like these :)
Hey Saul, Iâm not sure how but I missed this comment! Sorry about that!
I think that the best way to answer your question is by reading this & Open Philâs original post so that where it says âAI safety groupsâ you read ânon-EA groupsâ. That is my understanding from Open Philâs original post.
Does that help?
I havenât managed to fully sync with EAIF or other orgs yet, but in the meantime just wanted to encourage people in this position to apply to OP before the 31st!
Hey Gergo, just wanted to say Iâve seen this and hope to get back to you soon!
Hi Weronika, thank you for sharing your story and reflections so openly! I basically think you are right in there probably being organizers for whom the stipends are the difference between organizing their EA group and not doing so, and I really want to make sure we take this point into account as my team dives into considerations around part-time stipends in the new year. As @satpathyakash notes, I think an imporant question here is the scale, and I hope to make some progress on this point!
I also wanted to flag explicitly that we are tracking the diversity concern you note.
I expect that as part of our research in the new year, weâll set up various ways of asking stakeholders, including current, former, and potential organizers, for input. I would be keen to include you in this process, if youâre happy to keep sharing your thoughts! And as always: thanks for organizing your group :)
Hi @peterhartree, Iâm getting an error when trying to open the voting form:
âYou need permissionâThis form can only be viewed by users in the ownerâs organization.â
Note: we have tried to write out what these changes mean for EA university group organizers here!
Hey Jason, just wanted to follow up to let you know this is still on our radar. I havenât prioritized it but still plan on getting back to you here. Sorry about the delay!
Thanks for providing a bit of context on the ToC of the program /â the case for working âinside the systemâ! Sorry I didnât represent that as clearly in the post