For a start I would like to say myself a student I sometimes lose hope about college,hobbies and everything but that is not a reason no to push yourself more .
If you like what you study or do you can start doing projects it's great way to track your progess and move forward another option could be to go trough an extensive tech niche why not go trough a web program (a nanodegree or course) about something you find interesting and want to explore not only that will give you an alternative way to find jobs but the learning phase will help you get more active in communities meet new people and so on .
And remember never stop exploring yourself and enjoying life .
I recently started doing some competitive programming and going trough advanced algorithms...not really a side project but i'm looking forward to make a Network Monitoring service something that runs in your computer and acts passively to monitor system changes... to protect against malware mostly .
-My current side project isn't even 10% complete but it's on my scope I'm working on a micro virtual file system for important documents...due to the rise of Ransomware and people being lazy I think that making a secure,encrypted virtual filesystem could be a great idea .
Those are my thoughts only