“Mistakes, flukes, and good calls I made in my multiple careers” by Catherine Low🔸
I’m Catherine, and I'm one of the Community Liaisons working in CEA's Community Health and Special Projects Team. This is a personal post about my career. I’m somewhat to the right of the main age peak of the EA community😬 .So I’ve had a lot of time to make mistakes sub-optimal choices in my career. It has been a long and odd road from my childhood/teenage dream jobs (train driver, Department of Conservation ranger, vet and then physicist) to where I am now.Train I planned to drive. Endangered parrot I planned to help make less endangered. Before I got into EA Fluke 1: Born into immense privilege by global standards (and reasonable privilege by rich country standards) Mistake 1: Not doing something with that privilege. I wish someone (maybe me?) sat me down and said (maybe a more polite version of)“You know which part of the bell curve you’re [...] ---Outline:(00:47) Before I got into EA(00:51) Fluke 1: Born into immense privilege by global standards (and reasonable privilege by rich country standards)(01:00) Mistake 1: Not doing something with that privilege. I wish someone (maybe me?) sat me down and said (maybe a more polite version of)“You know which part of the bell curve you’re on. Try doing something more useful for the world!”.(01:44) Good call 1: I talked to other students in the research group before choosing a PhD supervisor(02:08) Mistake 2: Mistaking my interest in the ideas with interest in the day to day work(02:28) Mistake 3: Not giving up sooner(03:13) Mistake 4: Not exploring more options (even though they were scary)(03:29) Good Call 2: Got really good at a valuable(ish) thing, and then used that as leverage to branch out a little(04:12) After learning about EA(04:21) Good call 3: I didn’t let my age put me off changing careers(04:59) Good call 4: I reliably did stuff that seemed to need doing, even if they were boring, low status, or unpaid. I tried to be of service to others.(06:09) Mistake 5: Thought too narrowly about my absolute advantage and didnt consider where my largest impact was.(07:44) Good Call 5: I took a scary step - quitting my secure job without another guaranteed paid opportunity lined up (but with runway and a plan Z).(08:19) Mistake 6: Not giving up sooner (again)(08:44) Mistake 7: Over updating on a few rejections(09:55) Fluke 2: Stumbling into a role at the Groups team at CEA(10:22) Good call 6 (the best call): Doing what people I trusted thought would be most valuableThe original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 15th, 2023 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/w59DkYCJYqaYDpEqG/mistakes-flukes-and-good-calls-i-made-in-my-multiple-careers --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.