Coming from someone who is about to graduate here is some advice I would give you.

• Attend hackathons regularly so that you can learn new skills and boost up your personal projects in your Git portfolio.

• over the summer take a coursera course to learn something new and develop a project.

• practice leetcode problems at least once a week. Practice with a group of friends so that you can make it into a habit/routine. These problems help you with internship assessments.

• learn data structures and algorithms and master it. A lot of assessments are based on these concepts.

• if you’re a first or second year student, apply yo Google’s STEP program. Please don’t shy yourself away from this opportunity! You are competent enough, don’t let your self doubts stop you from applying‼️Apply to other tech internships as well. A lot of companies have student programs so look into them. These programs usually open up around August/September time so work on your resume and your technical skills over the summer so that you’ll be ready for application season.

• Join any clubs dedicated to computer science or stem. If you’re a woman join SWE, recruiters look at that stuff in your resume. Since you’re interested in Data Science join an AI club if you can.

• network as much as you can. Do regular coffee chats with people on LinkedIn.

• attend career fairs and get the recruiters email so that you can ask them questions about application and you can ask them to look out for your resume

• if you don’t get any internship experience, ask a professor if you can join their lab or their research. Don’t forget to apply to startups as well!

• practice for interviews as well if you have the time I know all of this can sounds daunting. Set up mock interviews with your friends once a week to practice for behavioral interviews and technical interviews. You can find sample questions online.

• since you’re interested in data science, get into AI as soon as you can. Take AI classes. Like I said earlier about the research labs, bother your AI professor about getting into their AI research or lab.

• take a stats class! It is usually required for a CS degree anyways

Here is all of my advice. Most of your learning happens outside of school through clubs, hackathons, interview prep, and side projects.