 Before we get started, I have an announcement to make. WE GOT SPONSORED! This video is brought to you by ridge.com slash lame. Imagine you're walking through the hallways of your school and the hall miner is like, hey, let me see your student ID and make sure you're not like a serial killer or something like that. So, you pull out your lumpy, gross, thick with two Cs wallet. You gotta dig the receipts, wrappers, old notes, garbage, and you kinda look like a doofus doing so. The hall miner is getting suspicious. His eyes glimmer. You fool, he was actually one of the elder gods presenting you with a challenge and you failed. As punishment, you're transported back 200 years to the American Wild West, where you find yourself engaged in a duel. The other guy whips out his pistol and he shoots. You die. Darn shame. I've only had the ridge wallet. These things are literally bulletproof and are lickety-splitted accessing your cards. No way. I can't believe this. It stopped in the first one. 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These are fantastic and I would highly recommend them even if they weren't supporting me. But they are supporting me so that makes it even sweeter. To help out my channel and get yourself some really great back-to-school supplies, visit ridge.com slash lame for 10% off with my eternal thanks. Okay, on with the video! While researching this video, I found that most guides on the internet were mostly just basic boring academic tidbits. Do your homework, focus in class, study, blah, blah, blah. Listen, I know you're not an idiot. Of course you know that stuff is important and I'm not gonna waste your time with it. This is not a sophomore year survival guide for your grades. Oh no, this is a sophomore year survival guide for your soul. Before we really get rolling, I highly recommend that you watch my first high school survival guide video. It's super duper old, one of the first videos I ever made. The drawings are super janky, the audio quality is garbage. But there is an old-school charm to it and I still stand by the information in there. It's not just for freshmen, you know. Everything there applies to sophomores too. Anyway, let's get rolling! Now hopefully when you're watching this, you're still in a position where you can pick out your classes. There's something really fun about seeing that big catalog with all the possibilities laid out in front of you like a platter of boiled eggs. Let's say you took Art 1 last year. Galaxy Brain Moment here. Probably signed up for Art 2. Acting 1? You should probably roll in acting 2. A lot of classes are structured where you can continue learning about their subjects as your school career goes. In sophomore year, you're in a position where you need to decide if these are the subjects that you're interested in. Double down on this stuff and become a master of your craft if you can. I know you don't want to hear this right away, probably rolling your eyes, but colleges and employers dig it when applicants have very specific interests and skill sets. The more honed in and specified, the better. Of course on the flip side, if you're not super in love with the stuff you've been pursuing, sophomore year is also a really great sweet spot to pull out and try something new. You're not so far gone that quitting and starting a new venture would be a waste of time, you know? Oh yeah, um, do you see how a few of these classes have CC or accredited written next to them? That means that those are college classes that are being offered to your baby brain. They're generally a little tougher, but it's often best to take a few if you plan on pursuing education after high school. Plus it saves you tons of money and tons of time if you really double down on this stuff. I'm talking thousands of dollars and months of your life spent doing cool stuff instead of slaving away at another school for years. And these college classes do make you feel smart. Okay, that's enough of the boring advice, I promise. Let's get into the fun, juicy stuff you came here to see. Okay, Mr. Sophmore, fancy pants? You're in a weird position right now. You're not exactly fresh meat, but you're not exactly a big dog either. Don't get a big head, you're still on the bottom half of the food chain. You're just head and shoulders more put together than those crying, sniffling, booger eating freshmen that are having panic attacks because they can't figure out their dumb locker compost. I know your first instinct is to laugh and smite them, but remember you were a bubble-blowing double baby weenie hut junior at 1.2. How about you take a minute out of your day, sit down with a freshman during lunch, share your chips, and impart with them the single most important piece of advice that you can offer them. Remember, these kids were in middle school a few months ago. Give them some slack. You know the drill. Get your work done on time. Don't forget to turn it in. A 50% is better than a zero, etc., etc. This is the most basic boring stuff. So here's some more intermediate tips. Uh, cliff notes. It's obvious when you're depending on them. Teachers see right through that stuff. They can sniff out when you haven't read the book that you've been assigned. Here are a few options. Number one, actually read whatever boring book they assigned to you. I mean, if you were doing that, you wouldn't be leaning on cliff notes though. So number two, watch at least five YouTube editorial videos or whatever on whatever book you're supposed to be reading. Stuff like wisecrack and whatnot. I mean, you're still learning. You're still grasping these complex themes and whatnot. You're just doing so in a much more interesting and expedited process. Think back to a few of these editorials when you're writing the book report. But remember, never ever plagiarize. That's not punk rock. Does math homework have you down? Well, let me fill you in on a secret little website. It's called Wolfram Alpha. It's basically the world's greatest calculator that can solve any problem you throw at it. And the best part? It shows its work step by step as well. This website has saved my butt so many times through the years, especially when your phone calculator can't keep up with you anymore. Just remember that this website will only take you so far. You still have tests and finals to worry about, so it's important not to become dependent on these PG-13 methods. One of the cool parts about becoming a sophomore is that your entire social world opens up a lot more. You're not spat upon by upperclassmen anymore, and the fresh meat generally look up to you now. The whole world is your oyster, so feel free to reach out to more folks. Joining clubs is actually pretty fun. I'm not going to lie. Look into what your school offers and make an effort to actually show up. It's a great way to make new friends and learn new stuff. Uh, friendships may start becoming more rocky, with folks you thought you could depend on turning out to be flaky, disrespectful, or even deceitful. Please remember that at the end of the day, at this age, everybody's growing, experimenting, and metaphorically trying on new hats. Some of these hats are better than others. Try not to take this stuff personally. You guys are all still kids trying to figure stuff out. You guys are dumb and insecure. Everybody sucks and everybody's trying to figure out how not to suck. So have a little bit of compassion, okay? Everyone's struggling. Also, watch how you interact with strangers and peers. This is cliched as Frick, but treat folks well because you have no clue what's going on in their background. It's estimated that about one in 30 teenagers have attempted suicide, so on average, that's one person per class you're talking to. I mean, everything sucks as is, but if you have the opportunity to be the best part of somebody's day, take it. If you watch my channel, you're probably some introverted kid who gets all of his musical opinions from Pitchfork or Anthony Fantano and cries every time Josh Dunn gets a new haircut. I'm not super convinced a lot of you actually get invited to parties. You're probably not going to get a lot of usage out of this section. So, come on. All you guys, come on. Let's huddle in that cute little corner over there. We have some community ukuleles. We have copies of alternative press. We have a computer with Austin Knights, Twitter open, and some hot topic gift cards. I make a panic at the disco video. Of course I will. Here, have a glass of milk. I'll be right back, okay? Now that the children are taken care of, this is my guide to partying in high school. Generally, there are three kinds of parties. Number one, there are the giant bonfires with lots of red cups with questionable substances inside of them with country music or trendy hip-hop music playing. These are a lot more common in rural areas. My only advice would be to bring a jacket and stay away from alcohol the best you can. The reason I say that is because, number one, it does get chilly. And also for alcohol, alcohol, teenagers, giant fire, they don't mix very well sometimes. This is not a joke. I literally have friends who know people who have literally died from falling on top of bonfires before while intoxicated. This is not me being silly. This is like the worst way to die. Be careful. Watch out for your friends. Steal that fire extinguisher from under your sink and bring it to make a big impression when some drunk football player could eventually falls on the fire and lights himself ablaze. Number two, there are the really cool house parties with low lights, loud music, and parents who are definitely out of town. These normally get pretty intense depending on whose house they're being at. Um, make sure you are never the one organizing these parties as they seldom turn out well for the homeowners. We've all seen the masterpiece that is Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Rodger Grylls, correct? These parties get a little wild, so make sure that you have an escape plan. I really hope you don't plan on drinking, but if you do, take an Uber to the party and then Uber home. It's a lot more convenient than driving and it does give you an out if one of your inebriated friends wants to give you a lift home. Plus, when the cops inevitably break up the party after an hour and a half, you are totally free to just jump over the fence into the front lawn, run three blocks, hide in some bushes, and then call on Uber from that location. That way the cops won't find you. Finally, there's number three, which generally consists of you and a bunch of your friends sitting in a well-lit living room playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or something like that. A well-intentioned mother will probably bring in a supply of Mountain Dew and Nacho Cheese Doritos as if it's 2013 again. No, Mrs. Thompson. When I'm playing video games with my friends, the last thing I want to be eating is Nacho Cheese Doritos. The dust gets everywhere and then I have to put down the controller to not only consume them, but then I also have to lick off my fingers, wipe it on my pants, and then grab your son's video game controller with my nasty spit hands and then I have to continue playing as if it's not the grossest thing ever. So in my first video, I know I told freshman to stay away from dating seniors. Well, guess what? The ban is lifted once he hits sophomore year. Yes, that's correct. You have my permission to date the big dogs if you can manage it. Congratulations. Look at you moving up in the world. Yeah, the whole school's your oyster. Do as you please. Make out with whomever will let you. This is the wild west, young buckaroo. Now, this is important to remember, but relationships are trying to get serious around this age. Mathematically speaking, you and your partner are going to break up eventually. You and your partner are not going to be in love with each other until you die. There is so much growth and change that happens over these next few years and you don't want to stunt yourself or someone else by trying to bend and mold yourself into something that you're not to make a teenage relationship work. Here's an important tip that just not a lot of people seem to understand. You are free to break up whenever you want. If you're simply not happy in your relationship, you are 100% allowed to just sit down with the other person and say, I don't want to date you anymore. It's not against the law. You don't need a reason. You are free to do whatever you'd like. You don't need to wait for the relationship to get bitter and resentful and drag on too long while you feel the need to bend over backwards and adapt to the other person's needs while cutting yourself short looking for any way to contrive some meaningless sense of conflict so that you can create an out for yourself to have what appears to be a justifiable reason to exit the relationship. Legit, if you're unhappy, just leave. Period. You're allowed to. It's a lot healthier to do so when things aren't horrible rather than putting yourself through hell to justify the breakup to yourself. With that in mind, I can't reiterate this enough. Understand that you and your partner are going to break up. Don't give them anything to destroy you with down the road, whether that be new photos, don't forget you're still a child incriminating information your mom's debit card info, etc. I don't know. Just be safe, gosh darn it. And um, last thing, I'm really embarrassed to even be saying this, but I know that there's at least one person watching this who needs to hear it. Uh, don't date middle schoolers. Please, for the love of God, that is disgusting. Do not stop it. Call your 13 year old girlfriend and break up with her dude. You are really nasty and I hope you feel ashamed. If your homies are dating middle schoolers, make fun of them. This is not a joke. That is really nasty. So most places require you to be 16 to start working, which is about how old most of you are in sophomore year. So let's talk about working in high school. Let's get this out of the way. Make sure that you're working for a legit company. How can you tell? Well, if the training isn't paid, it's a scam. If you need to recruit other people to work, it's a scam. If you need to buy the product itself so you can resell it, it's a scam. If people are telling you that you're working for a multi-level marketing scheme, it's a scam. Period. Lots of these companies prey on young people, so keep an eye out. A YouTuber by the name of Illuminati actually has an amazing channel where they go in depth with a lot of horrible companies that you should steer clear of. They're amazing. A little shout out to them. Tell them Nate's lame sent you. Basically, most of the work that you're probably going to be doing will either be in retail stores or food establishments while you're at this age. Food establishments are really easy to get hired at, but they often pay really poorly. Or they pay extremely well, depending on tips. But you also have to keep in mind it's brutal labor as well. On the other hand, retail work tends to be a lot easier, but you may deal with more abusive customers and have a tougher time getting hired to begin with. These are just two options to consider anyway. After applying to wherever you want to go, brush up on the company on Glassdoor and prepare for the interview. Read some questions that the company will ask you. Some places have set questions, others are pretty generic. Common questions are, tell me about yourself. How did you hear about this position? Why do you want this job? Why should we hire you? Were your greatest strengths or weaknesses? By the way, quit saying that you're detail-oriented. Employers see right through that. They'll also probably ask you about specific scenarios where you were a leader, where you resolved a conflict, how you deal with disagreements, and so on and so forth. At the very end, the interviewer will always ask you if you have any questions for them. Always have a question ready for them. That shows them that you actually give a hoot about them and it'll put you head and shoulders ahead of the last guy. Once you land the job, try to hold on to it. Be punctual, do good work, and do not get too comfy in your workplace. That means staying off your phone, recognizing authority figures who sign your paycheck. It's easy to get more lax the longer you've been at a job. Don't let that happen. It's an easy way to build bad habits and get fired. You don't want that. Ah, to be 16 with no responsibilities again. Is it nice having a life? Is it nice getting to do whatever you want? Man, I wish I could be like that again. Do you know what I would do with my free time if I had it? I'd learn, gosh darn it. I'd pick up a guitar. I'd practice drawing. I'd learn how to skateboard. I'd get better at cooking. I'd pick up programming. There's so many skills that I want now that I'm an adult. Lucky you, though. You're still a baby with nothing going on. It might be time to invest in yourself. Video games are fun and all, but this is the stuff that makes more interesting at parties down the road. Imagine how cool you'll be in college when your girlfriend comes over to your dorm and you impress her by successfully pulling off one of those really difficult binging with Babish recipes. Imagine how easily you can make hand-over-fist money while doing freelance programming gigs or how hated you'll be after you whip out a guitar and play Wonderwall at a party. Another cool way to get better at these skills is, you guessed it, checking on your high school's club selection. Is there anything on that list that looks vaguely cool? If so, sign up. Clubs like these don't exist in the same capacity and accessibility outside of the school setting. Definitely look into this stuff. You will not regret it. Oh, testing! This sounds boring. Click off video dislike. I thought I could trust you, Nate Islam. You said the boring stuff was over. Yeah, I swindled you, but this is important stuff, so I'm gonna make it really accessible, so sit down and listen. Next year, you're probably gonna take a really serious and scary test, the SAT or the ACT. Some states require it. Some states don't. If you're in a state where it's optional, though, you'd really be doing yourself a lifetime disservice by passing it up. You want a kind of low-key prep for it the best you can, and I don't want this to consume you or anything. I mean, we all see how weird those overachiever kids are. You don't want to take it to that level or anything. Instead, you can do the bare minimum, like me. So in October of your sophomore year, your school is more than likely going to offer you an opportunity to take the PSAT. It'd be smart to ask someone in the office around September and see what the details are. It's different for everybody. Legit take the PSAT. Some schools offer it for free. Others charge you around $17 or so. It's just a practice for the big scary tests you're going to need to take next year. Like, you can bomb this and it'll have no effect on your grade or standing. One cool thing is, though, is that you might get to skip a few classes if you take it. That's pretty neat. Another cool thing is, when you take the big scary test next year, you'll already have some practice under your belt. You're going to be a chat amongst those virgin losers who go into it blind, like me. I went into it blind. I really wish it took the PSAT. Finally, we have to have a discussion on school popularity. A wild and mysterious last she is. Lots of kids spend a lot of time worrying, calculating, analyzing, and thinking about it, trying to figure out how they can move up in their community social ladder. And guess what? They're dummies for doing so who fundamentally don't understand how these social structures work in the first place. Just like in the real world, high schools don't have popular kids. But, but, but those kids' parents bought them BMWs and they wear expensive clothes and they're all conventionally attractive and they're on the football team and- Hush, hush, hush. Those kids are not popular. Their parents are just rich. They didn't earn any of this stuff. Listen, that stereotype I just described, they're, they're not real. They're not popular. They're wealthy, that's all. Wealth is just a facade of looking effortless in everything you do and it doesn't make you likeable. It's the quality of your character that matters. You see, if you pull your head out of your butt and look at your high school in a broader level, it kind of resembles real life instead of what's resembled on MTV teen dramas. Popularity is not a ladder to climb to the top of. It instead kind of resembles bubbles. Lots of bubbles. Some bubbles are big, some bubbles are small, some people live in one bubble, some people live in lots of bubbles. There is no objective force that determines if someone is more popular than someone else. Like, a football player would be easily the least equipped loser if he attended a Dungeons & Dragons game. And one of those D&D kids would totally be out of their element at a robotics club meeting. There are tons of little microcosms all throughout your school and this archetype is probably the least interesting of all of them. I personally think that being involved in school marching band is infinitely cooler than just being easy breezy beautiful on Instagram and having over a thousand followers. Being interested in stuff makes you cool. And the older you get, the more you'll realize that the more you invest in yourself and the people around you, the better off you'll be in the long run. Listen, I know high school feels like a big deal. And in your defense, it is literally your entire life right now. I just want you to remember that this is not the real world for a majority of your life. This is just practice. And by all means, have fun, be a kid, get in trouble, experiment, cry, laugh, do all the stuff. But above all, trust your instincts, treat yourself like your most valuable asset and keep learning. The fact that you, the viewer, are watching videos on YouTube to better prepare yourself for this chapter in your life shows that you're making an effort and you do care. And for that, I'm really proud of you. You're doing great and you're setting yourself up for a good and successful future. Thank you for including me in your journey and it means a lot. So I think that wraps it up for this video anyway. I'll see you soon for my junior year survival guide. Wait, there's more? Yep, I'm actually doing a full series right now. Junior year is next and then we'll have senior year to wrap it off. Wow, that sounds really ambitious and exciting. Absolutely, and I don't want you to miss them so please consider subscribing. And I won't be able to afford to take the time and commit to these videos if not for the support from The Ridge. They're actually kind enough to cover the rest of this series. Also, shout out to my Patreon supporters and everyone who's made a purchase on my merch store with CrowdMade. Thank you guys so much. And thank you, the viewer. I really appreciate your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Stay safe, stay smart, and stay spiced. I'll see you next time.