[hogFeast]

I don't think it is only about being personable. That is obviously very important but it is as much about being able to insert yourself into someone else's life and help them. You meet someone, they have a problem, and you can say: "Oh, I know X or Y". That is very big, being a connector to lots of people with skills is the same as having those skills yourself.

But I agree totally. Most of my family worked in the public sector, I had no idea about any of this stuff until I started trying to get a job. And some of the people who I grew up with who were totally incompetent but were sociable/well-connected ended up doing very well (I went to a private school, so my sample is quite interesting: I know a guy who was very smart, went to college, trained in law at the top law school in my country, worked hard, but couldn't get it together ended up becoming a chef...meanwhile a guy who got straight Ds, scraped into uni, did no work whilst there is working as a PM at a top fund manager...they don't teach you this part of life in school).

On the OP: college isn't real life, it isn't anything like real life at all because you don't need to be an expert or have knowledge to extract economic value (and that isn't a bad thing at all). As someone who went to private school and saw a decent amount of privilege, it didn't helped kids who came from poorer backgrounds. These kids went to college (which probably would have happened anyway, they are smart) but most (not all tbf) struggled in the real world because they had poor social skills. I have a long list of utterly mediocre human beings who are punching well above their weight in life (and tbf, this is a bad thing...the guy I mention above shouldn't be managing anyone else's money...not to be harsh, he just shouldn't), and a list of one or two people who came from a poorer background and got out. I think that is down to a combination of socialization, understanding business, and nepotism (I wouldn't overestimate the latter, all of the people who punch above their weight had the ability to walk into a room and make another person feel like they had known them forever).