Student Opportunities
Information on opportunities for undergraduates to present and publish their work can be found below.
The Summer 2020 Yale Effective Altruism Fellowship is an intensive and rewarding 8-week-long program (run virtually) for students to deeply engage with ideas & strategies for effectively improving the world. Fellows will combine the head and the heart, as they apply rigor & rationality to questions regarding morality & altruism. We are looking for students who will not be content with doing some good, and instead have the ambition and drive to do the most good they can.
The Yale Effective Altruism Fellowship serves as a hub for intelligent, motivated, and compassionate individuals: we are tremendously well-placed to act on our good intentions. Our goal is to help prepare students to maximize their positive impact in the future. The Fellowship is a great way to get involved with Effective Altruism and become part of our community. We expect you to remain engaged after your first semester, and many graduating fellows go on to join the Effective Altruism board at their respective university, helping to organize events and activities, or founding their own fellowships if they don’t already exist.
What does the Fellowship consist of?
We are eager to provide an engaging, valuable, personalized and enjoyable experience for each of our selected Fellows. For that reason, the Fellowship has evolved with each new cohort and we hope this semester will be our best yet.
- Confront moral questions – both philosophical and practical – in weekly Fellows’ Dinners
- Gain access to exclusive meetings with guest speakers & professors, which have in the past included Professor Molly Crockett, Professor Mushfiq Mobarak, and Professor Shelly Kagan
- Participate in an intensive Introductory Workshop
- Have a direct impact through fundraising and advocacy
- Benefit from individual 1-on-1 mentorship and career-planning
- Determine as a group where to allocate money for charity
- Join a dedicated and passionate community
In order to get the most out of this program, Yale Effective Altruism Fellows will be:
- Passionate about helping others
- Driven to do as much good as they can
- Excited to dedicate their career to doing good and/or to donate a portion of their income to charity
- Open-minded and flexible, eager to update their beliefs in response to persuasive evidence
- Willing and able to commit ~3-4 hours per week for the Summer 2020 semester, including one weekly dinner, from 7:00-8:00pm.
What is the application process?
To be considered for the Fellowship, submit this application form by 11:59pm, Friday May 22nd 2020.
- Round 1: fill out the application form. We will let you know by Sunday, May 24th whether you will proceed to Round 2.
- Round 2: complete a short reading, and attend an interview with a member of our leadership team in which you will discuss your thoughts on the assigned reading. The interviews will take place from 25th-28th May. We will let you know by May 31st whether you have been accepted to the Fellowship program.
- Accepted Fellows will meet for the first time in the first week of June 2020.
We are committed to building a diverse cohort of Fellows. There is some evidence suggesting that underprivileged individuals tend to underestimate their abilities. We do not want the application process to dissuade potential candidates and we strongly encourage interested students to apply regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, ability, etc. We also encourage both undergraduate, graduate and professional students, as well as individuals from all intellectual backgrounds and majors to apply.
While we unfortunately will not have the capacity to admit every student who applies this semester, there will be another round of applications in the Spring.
We look forward to reading your application!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to yeafellowship2020@gmail.com