My name is Amy and I am new to EA although not new to social impact work. My degrees fall more along the lines of liberal arts & sciences (international studies, social service administration) and I don’t have a quant or tech-heavy background, although I have learned quite a bit through my work. I have mostly worked in “Monitoring & Evaluation” (M&E) in the US and abroad for a wide variety of programming from economic development to public health and othera for non-profits and local governments. Have also done some independent consulting on the side. I’ve built data systems from nothing, trained folks with low technological literacy to use data collection tools, done community surveying myself, analyzed our data against performance metrics, and created reports and other artifacts for decision making (which often went ignore or unread). The thing is, most M&E work is not very rigorous at all and worse, when implementation folks get bad results they often reject them outright. I’ve worked for a lot of different types of organizations seeking out a place where evidence is really what is driving funding decisions and thus I find myself here. The problem is I really don’t have the experience doing the kind of calculations or even using the language that is used in EA spaces. Advice on how to get started? Global health & development is most interesting to me and probably what I have the most experience in. I had Claude write me a program to learn fermi estimates recently as a starting point but would appreciate any advice
Thank you for taking the time to answer questions! Do you have any advice for someone who is trying to get into EA but doesn’t have the typical quant/research heavy background? I have worked in social impact my entire career (10+ years at this point) in organizations of all shapes and sizes from international humanitarian organizations to local community based organizations and even local governments, mostly in Monitoring & Evaluation/grants management. My work has been somewhat similar in that I’m constantly trying to answer the question of “is any given intervention worth dedicating time and resources to?” but not as rigorous in terms of design. Additionally, many places I’ve worked with in this space don’t make serious efforts to measure outcomes in a rigorous way and there is a tendency to shy away from data that proves the organization’s models wrong. I’ve also seen how measurement and implementation can break down in the field, especially when adapting across contexts. EA has piqued my interest as a field that strives to honestly and transparently evaluate interventions and uses data to truly drive decisions, not just as a requirement. That all being said, do you have any advice on how I can get started in EA/make my profile more competitive? Appreciate any insight you might be able to offer!
Hi everyone,
My name is Amy and I am new to EA although not new to social impact work. My degrees fall more along the lines of liberal arts & sciences (international studies, social service administration) and I don’t have a quant or tech-heavy background, although I have learned quite a bit through my work. I have mostly worked in “Monitoring & Evaluation” (M&E) in the US and abroad for a wide variety of programming from economic development to public health and othera for non-profits and local governments. Have also done some independent consulting on the side. I’ve built data systems from nothing, trained folks with low technological literacy to use data collection tools, done community surveying myself, analyzed our data against performance metrics, and created reports and other artifacts for decision making (which often went ignore or unread). The thing is, most M&E work is not very rigorous at all and worse, when implementation folks get bad results they often reject them outright. I’ve worked for a lot of different types of organizations seeking out a place where evidence is really what is driving funding decisions and thus I find myself here. The problem is I really don’t have the experience doing the kind of calculations or even using the language that is used in EA spaces. Advice on how to get started? Global health & development is most interesting to me and probably what I have the most experience in. I had Claude write me a program to learn fermi estimates recently as a starting point but would appreciate any advice
Hello Sai,
Thank you for taking the time to answer questions! Do you have any advice for someone who is trying to get into EA but doesn’t have the typical quant/research heavy background? I have worked in social impact my entire career (10+ years at this point) in organizations of all shapes and sizes from international humanitarian organizations to local community based organizations and even local governments, mostly in Monitoring & Evaluation/grants management. My work has been somewhat similar in that I’m constantly trying to answer the question of “is any given intervention worth dedicating time and resources to?” but not as rigorous in terms of design. Additionally, many places I’ve worked with in this space don’t make serious efforts to measure outcomes in a rigorous way and there is a tendency to shy away from data that proves the organization’s models wrong. I’ve also seen how measurement and implementation can break down in the field, especially when adapting across contexts. EA has piqued my interest as a field that strives to honestly and transparently evaluate interventions and uses data to truly drive decisions, not just as a requirement. That all being said, do you have any advice on how I can get started in EA/make my profile more competitive? Appreciate any insight you might be able to offer!