Tips from a Bonafide University Student on How to Be Smart:

When you're smart you have far more social license to do whatever you want. You can eat eccentrically in restaurants - use chopsticks however you like; sip from your salad dressing container. People will hang off your words and maybe drop their napkins on the floor too. You can get used
to not apologizing for things. You don't have to bother with tact, consideration, or fashion sense because you're an important mind, not some well-mannered clotheshorse.

Yes, the future will be bright for you, you budding intellectual. Here are three big ways to begin:

Read the Classics

Even among the sparsest of intellects you've probably heard the term 'reading the classics' being batted around, likely accompanied with an associated guilt of not having done so. These people are right. You need to read the classics. Go on the internet and get a feel for what they are (cross-reference websites when compiling your lists; skip sites that insist on graphic novels or Gertrude Stein.) Philosophy books are good too: go for the real jerks and the guys who've been dead for a long time. Get a master list together, and then, very slowly and perhaps taking notes, read the Coles Notes version of each one. Read the character and theme synopses too; they're particularly helpful. Develop plausible opinions on where the author was going with 'it all'. Drop them into casual conversation whenever possible (i.e.: this coffee reminds me of that time in War and Peace when; isn't this water-cooler shaped just like the guy from...)

Get Wordy and Stuff

So now, for all everyone else can tell, you're well-read. Don't let the opportunity to vocalize sail past: seize it by expanding your vocabulary. People listen longer when your words have lots of syllables. Habitually inserting six six-syllable words per sentence is a great way to start: go big and then learn to ease off. How do you achieve this? Easy. Read the dictionary.

There are relatively painless ways to do this (relatively viz. less taxing than school, more taxing than eating hot dogs). Every time you swear, raise your voice, or enthusiastically fantasize about introducing your boss's shirt to the coffee grinder/fryer/paper shredder, look up a word
in the dictionary. Or, try playing a delayed-gratification drinking game in which every word you teach yourself throughout the day translates into a Jägermeister shot later. Temper your education with unmistakable class.

Become a Passionate Debater

So now, for all everyone else knows, you're well-read and glotally dexterous. Next, you must learn to shut other people down intellectually. Teach them the gut-rending humiliation you can barely remember from times table week in elementary school. When you are faced with holes in your arguments, admit you are wrong: make things up. Use your sprawling vocabulary to prop up your straw men and elliptical arguments. Be vague. Get angry. Ask your opponent if they are serious or if they really just said that as many times as you feel you need to, or until they shrink in their seats a bit. Make up statistics. Master a subtle eye-roll. Gesticulate. Do not let them finish speaking at any point. If you are eating, that's even better: you will have an opportunity to showcase your eccentric eating and speak with your mouth full and wave your food around. Try doing both at the same time. It is important not to look at your opponent when they are talking; focus on objects over their heads instead, or on your cuticles. Check your watch a lot. They must never forget that your time is precious.

Moving Forward

There is certainly more to learn, but part of becoming a true intellectual is acquiring the shallowest understanding you can get away with, and then running with it. Go forth and intellectualize!