Career/life advice for sophomore

• Get your GPA up above a 3.5, even if it means you have to give up some tougher electives that you want to take in favor of a few bullshit, sociology classes for an easy A. 
• Find some small, boutique banks near your hometown. Try to network with the MDs via LinkedIn. A great way to reach out is "Blah blah blah, I'm deeply motivated to pursue a career in investment banking and would love to discuss what somebody in my position can do to best position myself to work for a firm like yours." End the conversation by saying if they ever have a need for a full or part-time intern to come in and help out on admin work you'd appreciate the opportunity. Maybe even offer to do it for free. If you don't get a job you'll get some advice.    
• Any way you can get the terms "Investment Banking", "Valuations" or "M&A" on your resume in some capacity helps greatly for a non-target. Ideal is an internship for an IB, but even joining an IB club or taking specific classes oriented towards IB/Valuations/Corporate Finance that you can call out on your resume helps greatly. 
• Develop an awesome resume; plenty of great templates on BreakingIntoWallStreet, WSO and/or Mergers & Inquisitions. They're all the same so just chose one and have actual professionals critique it - I'm sure someone on here would help ya. 
• Study technical finance interview guides so you don't fall flat when you do get your chance - you might not get as many chances as someone from Harvard or Yale to begin with so you need to capitalize
• Do a bunch of practice interviews with your career center. You'd be amazed at how easy it is to draw blank on cheesy interview questions like "Tell me about a time when..." 
• Learn the lingo, study market trends and do extreme diligence on the group that you're interviewing with. Talk to them about their past transactions and ask how certain trends you've picked up on have affected their work
• Cast a massive net. Don't be afraid of taking an unpaid internship at a shitty local IB. It's extremely easy to use that as a stepping stone on the way to higher places, when you're young.  

I think what really sets some people apart is a specific and genuine interest in a vertical. Ie. the bio majors who do healthcare and have lab experience, the tech bankers who have been programming and really understand the space, the consumer banker who had a small consumer product company, the energy banker passionate about decarbonization, the industrials banker that studied industrial engineering etc. etc. Definitely do not at alll have to be like this but I think it really helps people stand out