EA - Mistakes, flukes, and good calls I made in my multiple careers by Catherine Low

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Mistakes, flukes, and good calls I made in my multiple careers, published by Catherine Low on September 16, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.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.Before I got into EAFluke 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 on. Try doing something more useful for the world!".At school and university I was mostly just driven by curiosity about the world (plus avoiding situations where I would screw up important things). That led me to study physics and a smattering of philosophy in undergraduate, and then started a PhD in theoretical physics. I conveniently chose a subject area that meant few people would read my work, and the impact on the world would be ~zero (in my mind this was a feature, not a bug).Good call 1: I talked to other students in the research group before choosing a PhD supervisorThis led me to have an unusually attentive and supportive team. I think this made a HUGE difference in my enjoyment and productivity during that time. It still wasn't incredibly enjoyable and productive, but I was much better off than most PhD students.Mistake 2: Mistaking my interest in the ideas with interest in the day to day workI'm very extroverted - and I knew that before starting the PhD. Theoretical physics research is very solitary - which I also knew. Did I think that through? Turns out no.Mistake 3: Not giving up soonerI was pretty sure research wasn't for me after 1.5 years. I should have stopped then.The obvious signs happened at the end of each holiday:The whole department: "Oh man, the undergrads are coming back, I'm so annoyed I have to teach, I wish I could just keep doing my research" Me: "Oh thank Christ! The undergraduates are coming back! I'll get to talk to people, and have some escape from the interminable research"I could have even written up a Master's thesis at that stage so I didn't even need to go home with nothing to show. But I was stubborn and spent another 2 years finishing my PhD.Mistake 4: Not exploring more options (even though they were scary)I went straight into teacher training. It was hard at first, but overall a pretty good fit for me. But I wish I explored other paths too.Good Call 2: Got really good at a valuable(ish) thing, and then used that as leverage to branch out a littleI spent 11 years teaching. At first I worked hard on my regular teaching job and got good at it. Then that led me to be able to do lots of extra things; writing resources and assessments, then leading teams of writers and assessors, running science camps, getting involved in physics competitions, and consulting with government authorities. I became one of the go-to people in my little field - a moderately big fish in a teency pond. This was great for giving me more confidence and gave me more of a sense of my varied skills.After learning about EAEA sparked a big change in how I thought about my career (and my life more generally).Good call 3: I didn't let my age put me off changing careersIn EA there is so much focus on students and young professionals - one of the reasons is because if we influence a young person to pursue a high impact career path, they will have ...