Glad this exists, thanks for creating it!

Great post, it’s inspired one of my own! Here for anyone interested: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ckbLRboAffQw4Qjpf/brief-career-musings-programmes-resource-creation-and-flow

I’ve unfortunately not had the chance to look at the longer 45 minute version yet though, so can’t comment on that.

Interesting quick take, thanks for sharing!

It's unfortunate that more senior professionals are having this experience, particularly as experience and expertise are so important for tackling big issues. 

"Other services and brands are probably now better suited to cater to this need than EA." Do you have examples of these?

I would also recommend the Pandemic Action Network newsletter - sign up here.

The bar should not be at 'difficult financial situation', and this is also something there are often incentives against explicitly mentioning when applying for funding. Getting paid employment while studying (even fulltime degrees) is normal.

My 5 minute Google search to put some numbers on this:

Proportion of students who are employed while studying: UK: survey of 10,000 students showed that 56% of full-time UK undergraduates had paid employment (14.5 hours/week average) - June 2024 Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/13/more-than-half-of-uk-students-working-long-hours-in-paid-jobs USA: 43% of full-time students work while enrolled in college - January 2023 Fortune article https://fortune.com/2023/01/11/college-students-with-jobs-20-percent-less-likely-to-graduate-than-privileged-peers-study-side-hustle/

Why are students taking on paid work? UK: "Three-quarters of those in work said they did so to meet their living costs, while 23% also said they worked to give financial support for friends or family." From the Guardian article linked above. Cannot find a recent US statistic quickly, but given the system (e.g. https://www.collegeave.com/articles/how-to-pay-for-college/) I expect working rather than taking out (as much in) loans is a big one.

On the other hand, spending time on committees is also very normal as an undergraduate and those are not paid. However in comparison the time people spend on this is much more limited (say ~2-5 hrs/week), there is rarely a single organiser, and I've seen a lot of people drop off committees - some as they are less keen, but some for time commitment reasons (which I expect will sometimes/often be doing paid work).

Thanks Julia, and great list that you've put together (I wasn't previously aware of it). This post also links some other biosecurity reading lists/syllabuses in the 'Why create a new biosecurity syllabus', in case you think any of those should be added as well.

Thanks Max!

Thanks for compiling this! I skimmed this, and it was a good way of getting an overview of what is happening in parts of EA that I know less about. I found having it separated by cause then by month useful so the reader can choose which overview they prefer, although some non-AI causes could have had their own section rather than being clumped together (I slowly scrolled through month by month and clicked on some of the more interesting looking articles).

Exciting! A few thoughts/questions:

1. I'm not sure quantitatively how much of a difference it makes having a giving pledge focusing just on healthcare professionals, rather than overall, but it's possible that the focus/community aspect may make some difference. But the concept was interesting enough to get me (past medical device engineer, now health economics) to click on the post, then the website, so there's that.

2. When did this actually start/how many people have taken the pledge? On the Pledge page there are 15 people listed ranging from October 2022 to December 2023. It's possibly not all the people that have signed up, and/or the pledge might not have been open yet, but my first thought was that it looks like not many people have signed up/this isn't that big. But if the launch is now (i.e. given the post) that makes more sense.

3. I see a comment below that 1% seems a bit low. Healthcare salaries do vary a lot between countries (e.g. a doctor in the US typically earns a lot more than a doctor in the UK, and also the rate that people are taxed will be different between countries as well). If healthcare workers in the countries you are targeting typically donate more than 1% I think that could take away a lot of the impact from the pledge (people don't donate more, they might even feel justified to donate less). On the other hand I can see the argument that 10% is high/potentially offputting, so 5% might be a good middle ground. How did you choose which percentage to set as the pledge amount?