Does co-op not exist any more? This is what I did. After my freshman year at Virginia Tech, I alternated between working a semester and going to school a semester. There wasn an entire university office dedicated to this (co-op program). So, I never had any "time off" months from the day I started to the time I graduated. I worked at a software company in Blacksburg, I stuck with the same company the whole time. I made close to minimum wage, but I was a programmer. I was getting paid to do object-oriented design and implementation. It did take a little longer to graduate, but I had fewer student loans.
I would like to hear from the point of view of a recent computer science graduate here, who is having trouble finding a job.
I can see how you might want to work at one of the big companies, but they want "5 years of Angular" and okay, you don't have that. Maybe you have only 1 year of Angular and you're the most passionate Angular developer out there, but they won't even talk to you. That happens, I can see that. It is disappointing as a job seeker, but common.
"Developer" is not the only job title that involves writing code. I am not a "Developer" but I write shit loads of code.