Intro fellowship sign-ups at EA groups participating in Early OSP doubled this Fall.

CEA’s University Groups Team is increasingly focusing its marginal efforts on piloting more involved support to a subset of EA university groups. This pilot program – Early OSP or EOSP^[1] – 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 EOSP groups averaged 32 per group, up from 14 the prior year^[2]. Although we lack full baseline data, there are promising indicators – 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 we’re hoping to build on as we continue to build out principles-first EA.

1. ^{^}

   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.

2. ^{^}

   Thank you to everyone who made this happen, especially the group organizers at all these universities!

3. ^{^}

   We’re 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?

I'd 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 "right" path they laid out and worked as hard as I could, I’d 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 I'm grateful that this quick take is now there to point this out :)

Just wanted to bump this comment, I'm 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 didn't see the notifications - I might post from my personal Forum account next time to prevent situations like these :)

Hey Saul, I'm 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 Phil's original post so that where it says "AI safety groups" you read "non-EA groups". That is my understanding from Open Phil's original post.

Does that help? 

I haven't 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 I've seen this and hope to get back to you soon!