📌The First Semester Update📌

Dear Readers, 

On behalf of all the members of The Stratagem Initiative I would like to say thank you! Thank you for supporting our initiative and our mission. TSI was founded to create a platform for young minds to explore and challenge conventional thinking in foreign policy. We set out to bring together multidisciplinary and diverse perspectives to foster authentic learning, open debate, and creative thinking. I believe we have achieved that.

It has been four months since we launched The Stratagem Initiative and at the end of our first semester I wanted to take the opportunity to share a bit of our progress with you.

Making International Affairs Accessible to New Audiences

The key to achieving this goal was reaching you, our audience! In just four short months we have published 9 Beyond Borders Briefs, 11 Deep Dives, grown our newsletter to 450 subscribers while garnering an astounding 6,000+ reads between the newsletter and our website. Our newsletter currently has an 83% read rate while growing nearly 50% each month!

We have published stories from every continent and explored topics ranging from U.S./China competition in space and cyberspace, to the civil war in Myanmar, domestic unrest in Turkey, the impact of Deep Seek on international security, and the push for rearmament in Australia and Poland.

Our marketing team has worked tirelessly to grow our readership, build our brand, and reach new audiences. We tabled each Wednesday in Red Square playing games like TSI Jeopardy and even getting pied in the face with whip cream to get new subscribers. Our team also helped translate our stories into engaging social media content and built our following on Instagram. The team has also been working to update our website which we will roll out this summer.

Creating Resources for Learning and Exploration

Our events and professional development teams have worked tirelessly to create opportunities for members of our organization to learn and grow over the course of the semester.

Our events team has strengthened our community by hosting pasta nights, coffee chats, general body meetings, and other fun social events to build community and foster the sharing of ideas between our members. We also hosted our first ever speaker event with Foreign Policy’s Alexandra Sharp and U.S. Army War College Fellow Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Wiles on the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Our professional development team has been hard at work creating resources to help our teams thrive. We now have databases with 200+ available internships, the classes to take and avoid, as well as a repository with the best books, websites, and newsletters to get high quality information on topics in international affairs. We are also creating guides for how to get jobs in the industries our members hope to join such as Congress, think tanks, the federal government, intelligence agencies, and consulting firms.

We are also building a mentorship program where recent graduates in key industries will guide our members about how to get their dream jobs and while making the most of their time in college. If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a mentor please fill out this form on our website.

Empowering Youth in International Affairs

Our newest members, longtime staff, and founders have learned a tremendous amount this semester through our brain storming, writing, researching, leading, and conversations with one another. Thanks to your support we have each been able to hone our writing, better articulate our thoughts, turn our ideas into reality and form lasting friendships.

Central to the vision of The Stratagem Initiative was creating a community, brand, and platform that would enable our members to create new opportunities, events, and products to drive other aspects of our mission. We are excited to continue growing and refining TSI over the summer to create the best possible experience for our members and products for you, our readers and community.

We will continue to publish some of our articles over the summer while experimenting with new formats and styles for our newsletter.

If you are interested in writing for TSI over the summer please fill out this form and if you have additional feedback we would love to hear from you using this form. 

Thank you so much for supporting our mission and organization. We are confident that the best is yet to come!

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