{"slug": "the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship-in-college", "title": "The importance of getting high quality research mentorship in college", "summary": "A student planning to study dentistry while pursuing AI safety research is weighing whether to spend three months preparing for a more competitive medical university that offers better access to a top computer science department for research mentorship.", "body_md": "I wonder** how much attending different universities matters if we focus solely on the quality of research mentorship **available to an EA-oriented student who hopes to reduce AI risks.\n\nI plan to study dentistry at a medical university because I believe having earn-to-give as a backup option is important. However, my ultimate goal is to become an AI safety researcher.** I therefore plan to collaborate with computer science professors at a nearby university** and may spend around 40% of my time in college on AI-related research.\n\nSuppose Medical University A is located near University C, which has a top 5 computer science department in Taiwan and around 60 professors working in CS-related fields. Medical University B, meanwhile, is near University D, which ranks around the top 10 and has approximately 35 professors in relevant fields.\n\nUniversity C is clearly stronger overall and would probably give me a better chance of finding a lab doing a more EA-aligned research topic. This gives Medical University A an advantage, but A is also more difficult to enter.\n\nFor example, suppose I were admitted to Medical University B through the first entrance exam. **Would it be worthwhile to spend around three months preparing for another exam in order to enter Medical University A for better research mentorship?** (assuming that I would get in medical university A on the second exam and that the two medical universities are otherwise similar?)\n\nEven if you are uncertain, your 1-minute gut intuition about this topic would already be very helpful. Thank you very much for your time.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship-in-college", "canonical_source": "https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Wdp6GZGTAEQcikd3a/the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship", "published_at": "2026-07-12 14:54:49+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-12 15:17:39.494336+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship-in-college", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship-in-college.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship-in-college.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-importance-of-getting-high-quality-research-mentorship-in-college.jsonld"}}