1. Start preparing in high school. There’s really no way to answer the dreaded but inevitable, “So, what do you wanna do when you’re older?” question when you’re 14; you simply haven’t experienced enough of the world yet to decide how you want to impact it. This is the time to start thinking about it! Join any and all clubs that you’re even mildly interested in, you never know who you might meet or what you might do that could lead to an epiphany about your eventual career. Getting involved early will also help you learn what networking strategies work best for you, which will be crucial to know once you’re in college.

2. Disassociate high school and college in your mind. If you walk into college planning to treat it the exact same way you treated high school, get ready to fail. It’s not impossible to maintain a high GPA and decent level of student involvement while exerting the bare minimum of energy in high school, but that’s not the case in college. Before you begin your first semester, start developing rigorous study methods (professors consider textbook material that they never once covered during lecture fair game for exams, so always over-prepare) and effective time management systems. You may have to sacrifice a couple nights out to do it, but you should find a way to balance your schoolwork, involvement on campus, part-time job, and time to decompress.

3. Get involved on campus. Everyone’s heard it before, but there’s no way to overstate the importance of it. Campus involvement is crucial to your success as a college student. After orientation and learning what buildings your classes are in, a trip to the Center for Student Involvement is the key to getting off on the right foot during your undergraduate years. Student organization participation will teach you about how to function effectively within a body bigger than yourself. Additionally, if you’re not an especially disciplined person, it’ll help you develop a sense of accountability not only to yourself and your own goals but also for those depending on you to accomplish the group’s projects.

4. Volunteer at organizations relevant to your interests. Hearing “volunteer work” may conjure up images of you picking up trash off of littered beaches or working in a soup kitchen (both necessary and important jobs, to be sure), but there are ways use volunteer work to further your professional goals. If you’re interested in teaching, volunteer for an organization that works with students to learn which age group you most enjoy engaging. To learn about the administrative work behind nonprofit organizations, volunteer in their offices.

5. Acquire an internship, multiple if possible. Although paid internships are few and far between, that doesn’t mean there is nothing to gain from the unpaid ones. There’s no better way to figure out whether or not a certain job is suitable for you than to experience it firsthand and see how professionals in that field feel about their work. Internships are the best way to fill up your résumé before you enter the workforce, and it shows that you’re acclimated to professional environments before a company hires you. If you’re not sure whether or not an organization utilizes interns, ask! They may need one but never considered it before. Ultimately, aim to be offered a paid, full-time position at the company by demonstrating ingenuity and dedication, but if nothing else, you'll have learned a lot about what options your specific degree will offer you post-graduation.

6. Study your industry. More often than not, our perceptions are at least a little, if not totally and completely off. Don’t let yourself build up ideas about what the everyday life of a professional in your industry might be, do actual research about them. Chances are, if you’re not interested enough to spend your free time learning about it, the career itself will not be very rewarding for you. Reach out to people, ask them what it is they did right or wrong in their career paths. Learn from their mistakes; don’t let your undergraduate study be four to five years of you dredging through work you don't really care about.

7. Create a solid portfolio of work. In the Digital Age, there’s no way to get around the necessity of a website that acts as a portfolio of your work. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an aspiring journalist, or a law student, creating an online presence is crucial in promoting yourself to various different publics that utilize social media on a daily basis. Companies do not overlook your ability to garner online traffic, and it’s important that you learn how to do this in order to maximize the amount of attention and demand for your work. You can create a free website with Wordpress or Wix.

8. Be honest with yourself about your capabilities. Just because you can write an 8-page paper in the four hours before it’s due doesn’t mean you should. Plan out your projects ahead of time and do your best to stick the agenda you set forth so that you have time to do them in a way that you’ll be proud of. Give yourself a block of time to edit and redo the work so that when you turn it in, you’re sure you did your best. Professors and TAs can tell when you spent hours on an assignment, and even if you didn’t get everything quite perfect, they’ll acknowledge the effort you made through their evaluations.

9. Invest in yourself and your career.Money and college student aren’t two terms that are often associated with each other, mostly because there was no need to learn how to budget in high school. After you’re smacked with payments for books, tuition, and living accommodations, you're not left with much to spend. With the little that you do have, contribute as much as you can to a savings account. Once you are comfortable with your budget, use any excess income to buy things that will help you grow professionally. If you’re studying photography, purchase the Adobe Suite. If you’re a nursing student, enroll in an LPN program. The four or so years during your undergrad is not the time nor place to splurge on luxury items.

10. If you’re really not sure, don’t go. This is by no means meant to downplay the importance of postsecondary education not only for your professional life but also for your own personal growth. However, if you find yourself totally at a loss when it comes to knowing what you’re really passionate about, don’t feel pressured to attend college quite yet. Whatever you can do to learn about yourself is what you should be doing at this age. There is nothing worse than buyer’s remorse over a college degree that you want nothing to do with after graduation day. You can still do things that college students do to gain professional experience, such as volunteering and interning, as well as things that students typically don’t have time for, like working full-time or traveling. School will always be an option, so take your time and spend the money and time on a degree that you’re really excited about when you know you’re ready to!