College Network is your Future Networth

The success of one’s college career is far too often judged on the grades they receive in class, rather than the impacts they make on those around them and the changes they undergo themselves. What many high school seniors (soon to be college freshmen) fail to understand is the true opportunity at hand when given the privilege to enroll in a college. The contacts in your phone, your friends on Facebook, followers on Instagram, and retweets on Twitter are more relevant than ever before. We live in a new age, and there has been a pivotal alteration to the paths one can take to obtain financial success. A college student must realize that there is more to these 4 years of life than the almighty degree you receive at the end of your term. While some feel we are in the age of social extinction, I feel the economic edge has come full circle.

As so many of us young, invincible college students feel, we have the bull by the horns, or rather, the world at our fingertips. With the prices of college tuition skyrocketing, parental salaries diminishing, and rate of bank loan approval rising, we have set our future up for financial crisis. The day we enroll, the majority of students are dropped into a black hole of debt and disaster. We need to be made more aware of just how powerful we really are.
Every selfie, every picture of your new “kicks of the day”, every tweet about your favorite sports team, and every single annoying hashtag has created a world where we, the younger generation, are in actuality the most powerful marketing tool that has ever existed. As easy, mindless, and unknowingly as it is, we do this effortlessly — now we must ask why we can’t do the same for ourselves.

Some of us do — the entrepreneurial rise for our generation has begun and is just as relevant and important to comprehend as when the next EDC Festival in your city is. My college friends: you must be curious, figure out what you love early on in life. This isn’t a lifelong commitment — it never has to be. Just find something you are passionate about and figure out a way to profit from it; you have the world at your fingertips, and around you a market of young adults just waiting to be apart of the next new craze. As the next 4 classes graduate, we will see the relevance in just how fulfilling it can be to think outside the Domino’s Pizza Box and put your efforts into more than the college bangers and just the work in the classroom.

I believe that going out, getting crazy, pissing behind a rock on the front lawn of campus, losing a shoe, crowd surfing at a club, hooking up with the school mascot, taking a selfie with a cop, and enjoying the college experience is just as important as anything in life. I also believe that doing well in the classroom is extremely important. My point here is that these are not the only things that matter. Force yourself to find the common ground between the beer cans and textbooks. Do not get stuck in the mindset or trap that your grades, and ultimately your degree, will bail you out of the thousands of dollars of debt that will be put in front of you 6 months after you graduate. Nor will they be the sole factor in whether or not you are a “success” in life. The “college experience” is much more than the surface our media and many alumni have made it out to be. Clubs, meetings, events, professors, sororities, fraternities, the access and web of relationships to be built are often taken for granted.
Many of us are not fortunate enough to have been given the advice or guidance to self-educate, learn how to talk our way out of things, how to talk our way through things — beyond the line at the bar and the bouncer at the door who is denying your fake Alabama ID.

The social aspects of life and the financial reward possibilities now go hand in hand (literally!). The marketing power of social media is contagious, and we have been infected with this disease that will either be a blessing or a curse. Find balance between fitting in with the crowd and standing outside of it. When going through college, realize all that you are capable of, the positive name you can make for yourself, or better yet the support you can gather with an entrepreneurial venture. Sell t-shirts, make rubber bracelets, design an app, host workout classes on the field, sell ping pong balls at your next frat party. Think outside the pizza box and back to the days of the lemonade stand on the corner — the first year of college is an even playing field, and by graduation, we are mountains away from one another, some high, some low, and some still at the same spot they started in.

Today’s college experience is not so much the value of the physical degree/diploma but what you make of the incredible people you had the opportunity to meet over those 4 years. The way of the world and how to be financially successful is changing. Don’t burn your bridges and never be afraid to cross them. Your college network is your future net worth

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