Emailing Strangers: a Superpower for Self-Directed Learning

There's a lot you can learn by googling things, watching YouTube videos, reading books, and taking online classes. But what do you do when the things you want to learn are more personal, nuanced, and complex? 

For example:
- How does your favorite YouTuber/blogger/Instagrammer come up with their brilliant ideas?
- How did someone land their awesome job in a highly competitive industry? 
- What's the next step you should take in your quest to teach yourself _________?
- What should you know before going to college to study _________?

There's a world of useful knowledge locked up in people's heads—and sometimes, all you need to unlock that knowledge is one well-crafted email. 

In this course you'll learn how to write a thoughtful, powerful, and convincing email to a stranger on the internet—and then you'll hit send. 

You won't just do this once: you'll send 3-5 total emails. The goal is to receive at least one positive response within the five-day timeframe of the course. 

In these emails, you might ask questions ("How did you get started in this field?"), share something that you've created ("Would you give me feedback about this thing I created?"), or request an online meeting ("Could we chat on Zoom for 30 minutes?"). It all depends on what you'd genuinely like to learn.

While I cannot guarantee that you'll receive a response—because this is real life, not a simulation!—I can guarantee that you'll gain an important skill that will serve you throughout your life. (This skill is especially helpful as a teenager and young adult, when busy adults are more likely to sympathize with you.)

Through my work as a one-on-one coach for teenage homeschoolers, unschoolers, and other self-directed learners, I've taught the skill of emailing strangers for more than a decade. I also use frequently this skill in my life as an entrepreneur and author. I truly believe that it's an essential skill for self-directed learners—as well as curious and ambitious people of all stripes—and I'm excited to share everything I've learned in my very first Outschool course.

Here's an overview of what we'll do together:

CLASS 1
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1. Introduction to the idea of emailing strangers, how I use it in my own life, and how it can serve you.
2. Defining your goal: How to choose someone who might actually respond to you and make a reasonable request of them.
3. How to find someone's email or other contact information. (While this course will focus on emailing, you might end up employing a different mode of communication, such as an Instagram Direct Message.)
4. Fundamentals: how to craft a thoughtful, courteous, and convincing email. It's both an art and a science.
5. After the email: when and how to follow-up. 
6. Q&A

BETWEEN CLASSES
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This is where the magic happens! By Monday night (i.e., within a day and a half of the first class), your goal is to write and send at least three emails. (For best results, I recommend sending five.) I'll encourage you to share drafts of your emails in the class chat, where I'll offer helpful feedback. (Your drafts will also help to inspire other students' emails.) I'll furthermore recommend that you ask a parent (or other helpful adult) to review your emails prior to sending them.

Now, it's a waiting game :)  In my experience, if someone is going to respond to you, you're most likely to hear back from them within three days. If you get a positive response, share it with the group! If you get a negative response, share it with the group! We're here to learn from each other's trials and failures. And remember, this is a genuinely challenging task—it's reasonable to expect that most of your emails won't get a positive response.

CLASS 2
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1. Individual check-ins: Give us a quick summary of how things went for you this week.
2. Post-mortem: What seemed to work? What didn't work? What can we learn from this?
3. Advice for moving forward. What else can you accomplish with this skill? A few stories about how emailing strangers has changed my life in powerful ways.
4. Q&A

The first class will be mostly me (Blake) talking. The second class will feature more group discussion. 

I'm always happy to answer brief, important questions from students during class—but I also want to respect everyone's investment and get through the material, so I may deflect some questions to the class chat.

Important course prerequisites and requirements:
- This course is for self-directed teenagers who actually want to attend. (Parents, please don't just sign your kid up!)
- This course is for teenagers who are comfortable with the idea of emailing complete strangers. We will briefly address the issue of "stranger danger", but fundamentally, the student should already be prepared to identify (and quickly ignore) weirdos on the internet. 
- Students should only enroll if they have some general idea of what they'd like to learn as a result of this course. (Do you want to figure out what it takes to enter a certain career path or study a certain subject? Want to understand some "tricks of the trade?" Want to figure out how someone goes from X to Y in life? You'll have some time—but not much time—to figure this stuff out in the course. I cannot tell you what your interests and passions are—but I will help you turn them into reasonable questions.)
- Students should have their own email account and basic writing skills. (Proofreading and revision are part of the process, so don't worry if you consider yourself a poor writer.)
- Students should possess basic internet search skills: the kind that would, for example, enable them to find a college professor's email address.