I have been an EA forum lurker for years...finally decided to get over myself and engage more actively. Switched careers from finance/banking to academia| Ph.D. in Public Affairs| Trained as an economist prior to that but I identify more as a social scientist interested in conducting policy-relevant research| Particularly interested in social policy broadly (main focus on education and health policy)| I am here to learn and contribute as much as I can.
MaithGopalan
Karma: 8
Jennifer Pahalka who recently wrote a book “Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better”. Loved her interview on Ezra Klein show (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-book-i-wish-every-policymaker-would-read/id1548604447?i=1000615839464)! And, given government/policy work has been expanded upon in the recent career guide, I think this would be a great 80,000 hours interview!
Thank you for the quick reply, Karolina! I am glad to hear that going forward everyone who applies gets some feedback. I do wish that was the case earlier when I applied. If there’s any easy way to cull that automated feedback from round 1 for past applicants which can be shared, I would be very interested in receiving that! I am happy to send an email/note if that would help process that. Because rounds 2 and 3 entailed significant time commitments, sharing honest/quick feedback after those stages of the application process is even more important than the first rounds in my opinion. I would encourage your team to continue engaging with this as you proceed. Good luck!
I am very curious about the feedback! Even after round 2⁄3 (not sure which one—asynchronous video round it was) I did not get much feedback. So, I am not sure if reapplying would make great sense! Also, I was under the impression that applications made just in the prior year might also be reconsidered this year? Good luck and thank you for the post!
This sounds like a great project! I am not sure if the Op-Ed venues have already been finalized. But I wanted to flag this as a possible venue for an op-ed/policy brief-type entry as FAS seems to have a lot of federal policymakers as their audience—https://fas.org/accelerator/innovations-for-global-development/ Also, this particular idea page might have USAID, USDA, etc. as the audience, not sure if that’s a good target but just wanted to flag it.