Whether you need it to get your dream job or just want to fit in with white collar professionals, a college education will get you far in this world… whether you’ve actually experienced one or not. As you’ll see, they’re not too difficult to fake…

1. Forge A Degree

With the right clip art and a solid frame, you can prove that those four years of your life spent bagging groceries and smoking pot in your parents basement were actually filled with intelligent conversation and bibliographies.

2. Read Barthes, Freud, Hegel…

Or at least Wiki them and drop their names in conversation. Most college grads won’t even remember what they all theorized, so just hearing the name will cause them to nod and treat you like a fellow “educated” human.

3. Have People Willing To Pose As References

Choose a friend who sounds intelligent over the phone. They will serve as your “former lit professor” if anyone asks you for an institutional reference.

4. Roll With Graduates

Your circle of friends says a lot to people meeting you for the first time. If they all went to college, as far as your new acquaintance is concerned, so did you.

5. Thesaurus.com

Sound like you read books—use a thesaurus!

6. Fill Your Bookshelf With Impressive Authors

Make sure to occasionally dust so that people don’t see cobwebs developing around the pages you’ve never opened.

7. Pick Your GPA

Aim short of 3.8 just to be realistic. But go above 3 because why the hell not?

8. Refer To “Your College Days”

When bringing up any kind of drinking or debauchery that occurred in your youth (or even last week if you can get away with it), sigh and stare longingly into space while you note what a wild and carefree time you had back at Georgia State.

9. Read The New Yorker

Or claim The Times as “your paper.” College-educated people consider this the adult equivalent of liberal arts classes.

10. Have A Cursory Understanding Of Everything

Learn one buzzword from all the fields people usually brush past during a formal education. If you can throw out the name of that lady who lived with gorillas and identify one mathematical theorem, you clearly studied both anthropology and math.

11. Compare Your Current Work Ethic To Your Old Study Habits

“Back in college I would have waited until one day before the paper was due to start it… Now, gosh, I can’t imagine pulling an all-nighter.”

12. Purchase College Paraphernalia

Go to the bookstore of the college of your choice and grab a mug or a sweatshirt. Drinking coffee from a Princeton mug might be among the easiest ways to impress people.

13. Know Your Frats

Familiarizing yourself with Greek life will go a lot further with some college grads than references to academia. Those who think they can just throw together some Greek letters to fake fraternity association will learn quickly that this small world gets who doesn’t belong.

14. Hang Around Student Haunts

Absorb their conversations and learn their ways. Immersion is the best way to learn a language. See if the student bar will help you speak “college.”

15. Add A “Saint” To Your Fake College Name

Think people might call you out if you lie about attending in Ivy League? Give out any old name so that when people say they’ve never heard of that University, you can reply, “Oh, it’s a small liberal arts college in [insert Midwestern town]. Adding a “Saint” to the school’s name will make it even more believable. St. Dennis in Minnesota? Why not?

16. Always Disagree With Others

Your view on current events better differ from everyone else’s. The pickier the difference in opinion, the more convincing your “degree.” All anyone does in college is sit around disagreeing with everyone else, after all.

17. Wear Argyle Sweaters

Only people who went to college (or those trying to impersonate them) will be caught dead in this oddly traditional ensemble. Tweed jackets produce the same effect.