Leaf courses

[CharlieSierraAgain]

Has anyone any experience of these courses? Are they legit, useful, is it true they are highly regarded? Google isn’t throwing up much of use and I can’t see a thread on here.

What are they?

Well this is the concern! Online summer courses.

From their home page: Leaf is a nonprofit that supports exceptional teenagers to explore how they can best save lives, help others, or change the course of history.
This includes:

• Engaging with relevant ideas and opportunities
• Making informed academic and career choices
• Developing sustainable habits for long-term impact

I don’t want to link and be thought to be advertising. There are some red flags and I wondered if they are known on this board which is generally highly knowledgeable.

I don't know anything about this organisation but have done some digging.

Yes - it seems they are legitimate as in the courses exist and are competitive.

However, they are funded by the "Effective Altruism Infrastructure fund". I've found some articles that give background to this fund and the history of the Leaf courses and might help people decide if this is something they would want to be involved with:

https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/29075

https://cherwell.org/2024/10/14/the-cult-that-recruited-oxbridge-students-including-me/

Academic and former admissions tutor here.

I assume you are taking this language from the organisation, OP, even if loosely. I think the language itself is a flag.

Young people, no matter how exceptional, can only help to save lives in peripheral ways. Few of us will change the course of history.
Playing a small part in the advancement of justice, art, culture, science, a humanitarian cause, etc is already a large accomplishment.

The language you cite minimises this very important fact and I think that does YP a huge disservice.

I’ve read the articles linked by @northcluegc in the Cambridge and Oxford university magazines, respectively.

Leaf is an Effective Altruism organisation operating in a manner designed to seduce bright YP. Sam Bankman-Fried, now in jail for crypto fraud, was a prominent proponent of EA, reflecting that this is not just a literal juxtaposition of words we (think we) understand, but a movement within which it seems to have been considered that the ends justify the means.

Whilst a number of the projects cited appear to be very good, it sounds ad hoc: a rich person believes that they are prioritising the world’s needs rationally and allocates their money accordingly. There is clearly some collaboration but one senses it is not great. The contrast between the approach of these rich people and people like Melinda French Gates, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who consult and collaborate widely with experts and governments is marked.

EA feels to me from these articles like an updated version of Victorian colonialism: we are rich so we are clever so we are special, and we will help as we see fit. Leaf invites prospective and current students of elite universities to join with this approach.

Oh my DD has registered on one of these for the summer. She said it was free, as an additional piece before ucas.

I would be interested to hear if anyone else's DC are using this resource.

Gently, @Ilovelowry (great user name), you might want to read those links from @northcluegc

Thank you, This is exactly what I was looking for.

Yes, their language and massive red flags to me. Thank you.

DD did the History one almost a couple years back, it does seem very much to good to be true as she was paid to fill out surveys and various things. However, the actual zoom call discussions she found very interesting and engaging (was often intimated by how smart the kids on it were). They did very much promote effective altruism which she has not really engaged in since tbh. I don't think she regrets doing it due to the practice you get at conversation and building an argument however she didn't really go the extra mile of setting up proposals for funding and contributing to effective altruism as she was sitting her GCSEs!

DS is going to do one of the courses this summer. He found out about it himself and had already applied before I knew about it. But I was aware of the Effective Altrusim movement, I’d come across the 80,000 hours website in the past. It doesn’t totally align with my views, I think it comes across as ‘economists do charity’ in how they think about and prioritise effort and resources - but on balance I still think it’s a ‘good thing’ versus doing nothing.

I’ve talked about it to DS, he’s quite pragmatic and not the type to get caught up in ideology, so I don’t have concerns with any of the course elements that relate to the wider EA movement. I hope he gets the chance to talk to some other interesting people about topics that he doesn’t know so much about, and if it prompts him to have a less self-centric perspective on future career options, don’t think that’s a bad thing either.

Can report back when he’s done it!