There are several recommendations one would make for incoming sophomores in high school. Most of them occur within the school day, but some can be used as principles to be applied to one’s life, not only this coming year but in the years to come as well.

Aside from the standard recommendations one would give to students taking any class, there are some pieces of advice useful outside of class, such as getting involved. This means joining clubs and/or sports that you actually enjoy participating in, which will help you find a community of people you have a common interest with. Life is really just a big game of networking and starting early will help you have more opportunities in the very near future.

Another thing you can do to jumpstart your career is taking classes over the summer, if you haven’t done so already. Health, gym, personal finance and other semester-long classes are relatively easy to complete during the summer and allow you to take classes you’re actually interested in taking during the school year.

Doing this can also help you find something you’d be interested in pursuing throughout college and do for the beginning of your career. It’s also smart to take classes that will challenge you, but not so many that you overload yourself. Classes generally are harder this year, so you may find that you actually need to study for tests to do well on them.

You’re most likely going to take the practice SAT and ACT, huge tests that don’t count for any points this year. It can be really helpful to actually try on these tests instead of blowing them off, because it will help you to know what the real tests are going to be like, such as what kinds of questions are going to be asked and how fast you need to answer them.

Overall, sophomore year can be a great opportunity to further your education, find what you want to do in life and who you want to be. However, you will have to try if you want these things to happen. Therefore, the one thing I would most recommend for incoming sophomores to do is to put effort into everything you do.