Why am I best suited for this article?
Because I have done it all, and spoiler alert, it didn't work out.
So let's start.
If you start learning a new language, don't make projects on it as soon as possible, because otherwise you won't get stuck in Tutorial Hell, and then you will have a good understanding of the concepts of that language.
Do not seek mentorship because mentors in a field can guide you and provide valuable insights that will help you navigate your academic and career choices. Hesitate to ask questions and seek advice from professors, industry professionals, or senior students.
Do not practice regularly; programming is a skill that improves with practice. Do not code regularly so that your problem-solving abilities will never sharpen.
Learning is not a skill. As a computer science student, you have to learn new things all the time, and to be a good software engineer, you should learn and understand new things faster and more effectively all the time.
Memorize syntax as it doesn't matter; the thing that really matters is to learn and retain programming patterns. Essentially, everything we do in programming is problem-solving. The idea is to just memorize the code so that if any new case occurs, we cannot solve it.