About Us

Develop the skills you need to perform brilliantly! Learn about, and practice, the skills and attributes that are critical to success in college and your career — but aren’t taught in conventional schooling. Rapidly accelerate your development, working with exceptional peers in dynamic, challenging, and exciting projects. The Skills for Success Course is a 2-week Pre-College and Pre-Career course that helps students improve their ability to perform in cognitively challenging future endeavors in school and work. The Course exists to give students an introduction to developing in key attributes and to increasing their rate of learning throughout their lives.

The Skills for Success course is based on the intense “boot-camp” style induction for Stroud International, a high-ticket management consulting firm. Nat and Erik, who worked there, have delivered this training to dozens at Stroud and dozens at other companies as well as on MIT’s campus to current undergraduates.

Deep research into what skills and attributes really matter in college and career performance, backed by over 100 years of organizational psychology study results, refined this training into the supercharger that it is today. Students come out of Futures Forge with the confidence and ability to face complex, ambiguous, novel, difficult challenges full of many stakeholders in their lives without getting stuck, but instead can quickly explore, research, experiment, fail, iterate, and ultimately work their way towards success. These kinds of highly complex challenges are the core of the difficult work that lies ahead in college and in a high-flying career.

Residential in Boston, Summer 2024
2 Weeks: June 16 – June 28 and July 7 – July 19

2024 Instructors 

This year only: founders Nat & Erik will be lead facilitators.

Nathaniel Greene

Nat has accelerated the careers of hundreds of professionals of all ages as consultant, coach, and business leader.

Futures Forge is inspired by the success Nat had developing recent grads from Ivy+ schools in the firm he founded, Stroud International. Stroud’s success helping Global 1000 businesses and the rapid learning of early employees, Stroud won “Best Small Consulting Firm” 7 times in 8 years.

Nat is the author of 3 books:

Wedged, about the roots of US political polarization
Stop Guessing, about the behaviors of great problem solvers
Variable Analysis, a manual to solving valuable technical problems

Erik Fogg

Erik has coached, managed, and mentored well over 100 young professionals and startup founders as a business leader and as a volunteer mentor and teacher.

Erik (MIT 2009, Bachelors & Masters) is a serial tech entrepreneur and operational front-line and executive leader who has collaborated with Nat on various projects for over a decade. He was an undergrad and grad student at MIT, and a consultant at Nat’s firm.

Erik is also the author of the book How to Crush College.

What Students Get in the Course

• Increased confidence
• Knowledge of how to increase performance and self-motivation
• Understanding of your strengths & development areas in skills & attributes
• Personalized growth plan from the lead facilitators