I often see university EAs aiming to do research projects to test their fit for specific cause areas. I don't think this is a good idea.
I think if you felt you were good or bad fit for a research project, either you were a good or bad fit for research generally or a specific style of research (qualitative, quantitative, philosophical, primary, secondary, wet-lab, programming, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, clinical trials).
For example, it seems very unlikely to me that someone who disliked wet-lab research in biosecurity will enjoy wet-lab research in alternative proteins, but it seems less unlikely that someone who disliked wet-lab research in biosecurity will enjoy dry-lab research in biosecurity.
Similarly, if you enjoyed literature review based research in one cause areas, I think you are likely to enjoy the same type of research across a range of different cause areas (provided you consider the cause areas to be highly impactful).
I think decisions on cause areas should be made primarily on your views on what is most impactful (whilst avoiding single player thinking and considering any comparative advantages your background may give you), but decisions on roles / job types / work types should heavily consider what you have enjoyed and have done well.
I think rather than testing fit for particular cause areas, students should test fit for different roles / job types / work types, such as entrepreneurship / operations, policy / advocacy and a range of different types of research.
This is a great post.
The ideal job is the one where you're doing things you love to do anyway, and getting paid for it. But it's hard to know in advance what that will be. So I would encourage people to test the waters a bit too.
For example, lab-research is exciting, but for each 3 hour experiment you might spend a week preparing, doing risk-analyses, ordering materials, running QA checks, requesting budget, booking lab-space. And you may end up in a lab where you need to spend 15 minutes every time you enter or exit the lab just putting on and taking off protective clothing. Some people thrive in this environment, they love the details and the precision and the perfectionism of getting everything just right.
Likewise, doing literature research and learning about the leading edge of the field is fascinating. But are you sure you're the kind of person who will look forward to having a 40-page technical document in highly concise, technical language to read every morning and every afternoon?
Being involved in policy-setting feels like an incredibly important role - and it is. But it also requires keeping your own ego and opinions very much in check, being able to push enthusiastically for incremental gains, being able to compromise strategically, being willing to accept things that you don't like, listening respectfully to opinions you find repulsive and so on. (for example: imagine you're negotiating with China about cutting methane emissions and they say "we can agree to your proposal, but in return, we want you to endorse our one-China policy on Taiwan" ).
The people who are good at this will talk about the times they succeeded, but you need to be aware of how much effort and how many failed efforts they have to deal with. It requires huge degrees of resilience and grit. It is not for everyone.