"Studying? Networking? What do I do?"

Honestly, there’s no easy way out that allows choosing one or the other. Sorry to break it to you, but both studying and socializing with the right people are necessary to have a successful career.

With the popularity of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc. it has become sort of known that even college dropouts can make it big in the world. Well, I’d like to ask you, how many Bill Gates do you know? I can almost guarantee that they can be counted on one hand. In fact, in today’s world, it is statistically proven that college graduates on average earn double what those with only a high school diploma can earn. Yes, that’s right, double. I know how badly you wanted to sit at home and invent the next Facebook but it seems that going to college may be the right option.

However, this isn’t to say that spending high school sitting in front of the books is sufficient. There’s more out there. Find out what it is. Getting to meet adults with fascinating careers, developing relationships with businessmen and doctors, or networking with anyone whose career may be in the slightest bit interesting could be beneficial. Not only can this be a great source of knowledge, but these are the people that can get to know you and write that marvelous letter of recommendation that can put you over the top to get into that dream university. Staying connected and doing things outside of your comfort zone are what make the difference between that 4.0 GPA student and the 4.0 GPA student that actually has the ability to make use of that knowledge.

While networking may seem like the easier choice to focus on, doing well academically is also not out of reach with a little hard work. The little detail that no one mentions is that by focusing on both, you will get the furthest in life. However, socializing with the right people is a much easier task once you get past high school and people start looking at you like an adult. While there are no classes and no instructors that can teach you how to “network”, Victory Step makes the academic portion much easier! Our personalized classes and unique plans make standardized testing a piece of cake. OK well, that’s an exaggeration but we get as close to cake as you’ll ever get with the SAT.