Playing around with projects and making stuff is a good start.
Here's a warning though. Doing a lot of projects will help but be careful in considering this as a silver bullet. You will probably pick up some bad habits as well as future stuff people will go crazy over.
I would try to do something that involves working with other people. You'll probably have a headache, have an awful time at first but it will teach you a big lesson - how to structure your code in a way that it's more a diplomat that plays nicely with other people's code rather than a war mine that nobody wants to touch with a 1000 foot poll! Once you done that, then choose something in a completely different area (e.g. if you did client-server, try UI desktop application as an example). It doesn't have to be a big project but it will teach you how things can be similar and different.
So in short, solo projects then find your way into a team project of some type.
Just my two cents. Take what's useful and throwaway what you think is bad.
Comments
Playing around with projects and making stuff is a good start.
Here's a warning though. Doing a lot of projects will help but be careful in considering this as a silver bullet. You will probably pick up some bad habits as well as future stuff people will go crazy over.
I would try to do something that involves working with other people. You'll probably have a headache, have an awful time at first but it will teach you a big lesson - how to structure your code in a way that it's more a diplomat that plays nicely with other people's code rather than a war mine that nobody wants to touch with a 1000 foot poll! Once you done that, then choose something in a completely different area (e.g. if you did client-server, try UI desktop application as an example). It doesn't have to be a big project but it will teach you how things can be similar and different.
So in short, solo projects then find your way into a team project of some type.
Just my two cents. Take what's useful and throwaway what you think is bad.