I’m a big fan of exploring and thinking about your options. But honestly, I think one of the best ways of doing so is just to try learning some of the basics. For example, for my MATS application, a lot of people totally new to mech interp try spending a weekend doing a small project. And I expect this is much more educational about whether they want to do mech interp than a bunch of paper reading, thinking, etc. If your priority is not personal fit, but instead thinking deeply about theories of change or something, then that’s a different matter, and trying stuff is not as helpful. I do think that understanding the key papers in each subfield that are recent and up-to-date and where modern thought is at is pretty valuable. But a common trap for the kind of person trying to get into the field is to spend all of their time obsessing over finding the optimal thing to do, and forget the step where they actually need to do something
This resonates. I do have the tendency to read and think too much about whether this is the right thing to do (e.g., I keep following links and find an article that says “you should do this instead”, then I think “hmm maybe I should”, until I find the next advice that convinces me otherwise). And in the end, of course, I get much less done (and learn much less) than I would have if I had just tried something out.
Thanks for suggesting this shift in perspective towards action.
I’m a big fan of exploring and thinking about your options. But honestly, I think one of the best ways of doing so is just to try learning some of the basics. For example, for my MATS application, a lot of people totally new to mech interp try spending a weekend doing a small project. And I expect this is much more educational about whether they want to do mech interp than a bunch of paper reading, thinking, etc. If your priority is not personal fit, but instead thinking deeply about theories of change or something, then that’s a different matter, and trying stuff is not as helpful. I do think that understanding the key papers in each subfield that are recent and up-to-date and where modern thought is at is pretty valuable. But a common trap for the kind of person trying to get into the field is to spend all of their time obsessing over finding the optimal thing to do, and forget the step where they actually need to do something
This resonates. I do have the tendency to read and think too much about whether this is the right thing to do (e.g., I keep following links and find an article that says “you should do this instead”, then I think “hmm maybe I should”, until I find the next advice that convinces me otherwise). And in the end, of course, I get much less done (and learn much less) than I would have if I had just tried something out.
Thanks for suggesting this shift in perspective towards action.