I’m trialing for the Executive Office Team at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) after a year of work on the Events Team.
Previously, I scaled up the EA Opportunity Board, interned at Global Challenges Project, and founded the EA student group at University of Wisconsin–Madison, where I studied Neurobiology and Psychology.
If you think we share an interest (we probably do!), don’t hesitate to reach out :)
For Michael (or others): Do you think there might be a connection between (responsible) Psychedelic use and altruism? And if so, do you think this is a promising research avenue or future application for psychedelics?
In How to Change Your Mind, you reference the sense of ‘oneness’ and global community that often follows a psychedelic experience. I imagine these same feelings motivate many altruists, so psychedelics’ ability to dial them up could potentially lead to some inspiring ethical change; the change that has motivated many players in the colorful history of Psychedelics. From personal experience starting student organizations for both EA and Psychedelic Research advocacy, I’ve perceived an above-random overlap, but I’m not sure if there’s a causal relationship– and if so which comes first– or if there’s selection effects at play. Really exciting to see this AMA!
Helpful post! Found a link for UW-Madison, my university: https://internships.international.wisc.edu/internships/wisconsin-in-washington/
Feedback: We gave out books we ordered through this form at a student org fair last week and it was a success!
We were moderately exclusive in giving out books, but still gave out nearly all of the 50+ books we had. By moderately exclusive, I mean that we only gave out books to people who seemed genuinely interested in EA and joining EA UW-Madison. We also tried to match the books we gave out to what people were studying (e.g. Superintelligence to CS majors, Poor Economics to econ students), although this likely doesn’t need to be forced since that’s what the students themselves would choose.
Even just having the books on our table at the student org fair made us more interesting, per a friend and new members feedback. People who joined our Slack after the follow-up email also again expressed their gratitude for having received a book – I think this is a really good first impression for a club (they gave me meaningful free stuff!).
We are now ordering more books for an upcoming Intro to EA presentation, an intro fellowship, and tabling on campus.
Thanks, I found this really helpful! I think this could be helpful advice for other EA group leaders, even if the management in most groups takes place on a smaller scale and in a less organized manner than other EA orgs. I’ll try to share it around a bit.
The Randox coupon code “BritishAirways” is invalid for me. If anyone finds another coupon code that does work, it would be helpful to share.
None of the ones on this page worked
Yesss this is very aligned with what I have come to recognize as I’ve gotten more engaged with EA.
Worth mentioning: this can be hard.
Many EAs come from high-achieving/ academically ambitious backgrounds. Pre-EA, that often means orienting towards the best grades and generally acting in a way that fulfills this high-achieving self-perception (which can entail taking more goals). As one hopefully reflects on goals upon encountering, EA there’s a conflict between this residual self-perception and trying to help save or improve the lives of as many people as you can.
I still notice this conflict in my felt-aversion towards skipping classes because they’re not the best use of my time and I can consume the info covered elsewhere faster. I’m also having a hard time putting less time into assignments and exams that I know I could get an A on even though just taking a slightly worse grade would free up valuable time. (+1 for Half-Assing it with Everything You’ve Got).
Agreed. In my experience, running a group successfully takes a lot of time. You can get funding, improve productivity tools, and meet with many helpful folks, but at the end of the day, a group really scales in proportion to how much time you put into it.
I agree with the overall thesis though. Starting a group is not as daunting as it may seem at first glance, and I personally find it quite rewarding!
Thanks for compiling all of these!
I’m curious if you have any strong opinions on a 4-week fellowship model that some groups use (e.g. Positive Impact Society Erasmus)
We will consider the goal “Analyzing the weekend impact and sharing our tips and insight” fulfilled if someone in EA community running a weekend retreat reads this and actually utilizes some of the info shared, so if you do, please let us know! It is really important for our internal prioritization.
I and some fellow university group (UW–Madison, U Chicago, Northwestern, Michigan) leaders in the USA’s midwest are in process of organizing a career retreat next semester. We are using this post!
Thanks for writing this up! It would be really cool to see some reproducible programming and advice for folks interested in organizing an organizers retreat. They seem very valuable.
I’m aware of such a resource for group member retreats from Olivia Jimenez “Next Steps” retreat resource, but I don’t know of any content that could help a group organizer plan an organizer retreat.
For example, there is a nascent EA Midwest collaboration arising between UChicago, UW–Madison, Northwestern, and U Michigan. I could see us running an organizer retreat in the future, and some resources on key considerations and programming would be useful.
Really enjoyed this post– thanks for writing it!
I remember asking you this question in a one-on-one hehe. I’m glad you took the time to write it out! This will be helpful for me to return to :)
I unfortunately don’t have any relevant experience, but I like this idea.
It could be interesting to have a short documentary about the community, especially what motivates us. With all our quirks, I think our intense desire to make the world a better place is pretty wholesome and loveable – or at least I feel that about my fellow EAs :) I’d like to see snapshots of how people turn that desire into action, and how the community as a whole fosters it.
It could also be powerful to see people talk about what they find difficult about EA or longtermism and address some of the possible critiques people may have in a very personal way. (Interviews like those in Habiba’s Twitter thread come to mind!)
This is really exciting! Props to a beautiful, clear website and a launch that created a buzz. This initiative is the nudge I needed to get serious about starting that blog-thing I’ve talked to friends about.
What proportion of the content for such a blog/website should be EA-related? I’d love to write about EA ideas, but I’m also drawn to topics in philosophy of mind, mental health, and like… existing. Could you see a successful blog dip into a wide variety of topics, or would you be more excited about a blog where nearly every post has a clear connection to EA?
I would love it if someone decided to quickly create and boldly market a new EA jobs board.
I want to flag the existence of the EA Internship Board for younger EAs. We hope to update this regularly as new positions role in!
(If anyone is interested in helping source opportunities for young EAs in the coming months, please get in touch with me at MJusten@wisc.edu !) There would most likely be funding available.
Related question: what proportion of these new opportunities do you think will be accessible to EA college students and recent graduates?
Good ideas!
In a meeting a while back I floated a half-baked thought and you said something like “Is there something you could do [to develop that idea] in the next five minutes?” That’s stuck with me since as an unusual – but very helpful – meeting moment :)
I can’t think of any collections related to these aptitudes, but I agree they could be really valuable.
Coming up with group-learning guides for buildings these aptitudes could be a great, scaleable activity for student groups post-intro fellowships.
Similarly, projects ideas related to the aptitude could be really helpful. Some people have said that work trials (e.g. Rethink priorities’) were very helpful for them to test to their fit, so these could be something to look into.
Let me know if you look into this more– it’s a project I’m considering this summer.
I’d love to see more virtual reality content in EA!
VR will only become bigger in future years, and it seems uniquely posed to share ideas at a more visceral, emotional level that traditional EA communication can lack (e.g. first time I put on a VR headset and did the ISS simulation I had a mini overview effect that reaffirmed “wow, I really wanna protect this planet”
This really resonated for a young EA like myself. EA totally transformed the way I think about my career decisions, but I quickly realized how competitive jobs at the organizations I looked up to were. (The 80k job board is a tough place for an undergraduate to NOT feel like an imposter). This didn’t discourage me from EA in general, but it did leave me with some uncertainty about how much I should let EA dictate my pursuits. This post offered some excellent reassurances and reminders to stay grounded.
Inspired me to leave my first comment on the forum. Thank you for the lovely post :)