If I were asked to impart one piece of advice to prospective CS students, it would be to take advantage of your school’s coop work program or, if there isn’t one, to try and find a recurring internship.
Nothing beats real world experience, and the sooner you can put theory into practice, the better.
Additional learning on your own is, of course, also a great idea. Pick a project you’d like to do, and then do it. Or find an interesting open source project, explore the code base, and try tackling a bug report or two.
I was astounded how much better I was than my classmates at coding, testing, debugging, etc. I attribute all of it to the 25 hours a week I spent at work.
Nothing beats real world experience, and the sooner you can put theory into practice, the better.
Additional learning on your own is, of course, also a great idea. Pick a project you’d like to do, and then do it. Or find an interesting open source project, explore the code base, and try tackling a bug report or two.