Long ago, when tuition was affordable, a college degree was enough. If you went to a university, earned a degree, and applied to enough places, you were essentially guaranteed a job after graduation. Today, college students and some recent grads face a job market where their degree is only part of their expected achievements. Want that co-op? Applying to grad school? Trying to find a job after graduation? Your resume needs more than relevant coursework. You need campus involvement, leadership experience, and internships aplenty to even get remotely close to landing an interview.

That’s simply the truth for the modern college student: A degree from an accredited university is not enough anymore. From engineering to art history, bio-med to political science, no one can simply complete their degree plan and expect a career path to suddenly illuminate before them. College students today need to stand out in order to get in, and that requires going far beyond the classroom.

You are a young professional the minute you move into your dorm your freshman year. Every classmate, professor, and fellow organization members are colleagues with connections. Success in college goes so far beyond figuring out adulthood and earning a high GPA, but too often we focus on that simple social life/sleep/academics trifecta. Focus too much on one area, and you will flop—this is evident to many of us even in high school. Yet I think that classic Twitter picture’s statement goes far beyond that balance. Maintaining that trifecta is not enough to be successful in or beyond college, and the sooner you realize that the sooner you will set yourself up for a fruitful career.

How is this fair? Maybe it’s not, as our employers received their jobs in decades where degrees were enough to exemplify the talents they can bring to their fields. Maybe you don’t want to do more than what’s expected. Cool, but good luck finding a job when all of the other candidates you’re competing against did go above and beyond their degree plan. Or maybe it’s pushing us to be better candidates for employment, and thus creating a greater talent pool in the job market.

All I know is that I am constantly looking forward. I have to. I have to balance grades, health, a social life, and constantly work on my professional life. Networking, researching, applying, emailing—all of it requires looking forward.

But contradictory to that, this all requires being present. Constantly updating your resume, being aware of every connection you make at university, balancing internships with all the daily struggles. Going above and beyond is the only way that you can ensure that a relevant job you’re happy with is possible for you down the road.

It certainly seems that those who go above and beyond get rewarded while those that wait for opportunity to find them will find themselves struggling. The easiest way to feel confident about the future is to join both extracurricular and perhaps curricular-focused organizations now. Get into leadership within those organizations, apply for that internship, or even go up to that one professor after class and ask them about their research. Sure, this may add a lot more to your plate than what you expected, but going the extra mile now will save you from employment insecurity later. Honestly, the best thing you can do for your college career is realize want you want your degree to be, the end goal of these four years, is actually not enough.