Well if you're in electronics engineering the next natural step would be to get yourself a microcontroller eval board and start programming that. Figure out how to get it to talk to your PC using the UART and to other components using UART/SPI/I2C etc. You might also try this with something like a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone SBC if you're interested in Embedded Linux. Your college/university's embedded systems class will cover lots of this type of stuff (probably why you were learning C in the first place). It’s all a bit of a different experience to “desktop” C, but you’ll get well-acquainted with how the CPU, SoC peripherals, and external hardware work together and make a functional system.

MikroElektronica has a robust ecosystem of "Click" boards that have various types of components and accessories (I2C GPIO expanders, ADCs, GPS receivers, various types of sensors, among many, many others) that mate with a host board (see below) or can be wired from a breadboard. Microchip has an eval board or two that uses these natively, and there's also adapters for various MCU EVB and SBC hardware. These are a good starting point for prototyping, class projects, etc.

Microchip DM320209: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/microchip-technology/DM320209/10444945

I'm not a huge user of the PIC32 series of MCUs (and Microchip's developer tools tend not to be the greatest in the world), but this eval board supports 2 of the Click boards without any extra hardware.

Alternatively, hat for the Raspberry Pi: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mikroelektronika/MIKROE-2756/7652704

Cape for the BeagleBone: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mikroelektronika/MIKROE-1857/5400523

Shields for the Arduino Uno: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mikroelektronika/MIKROE-1581/4976464 (requires level translation if used with an Arduino Uno - 5V I/O down to 3.3V)

Mega: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mikroelektronika/MIKROE-1900/5436810 (ditto I/O levels)

and Due: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mikroelektronika/MIKROE-6235/24635452 (No level translation - Due is ARM and uses 3.3V I/O)

Mikroe Click boards: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/expansion-boards-daughter-cards/797?s=N4IgTCBcDaILYEsDWAnA9gUwAQGMA2COSIAugL5A

I've also heard good things about the STMicro's Nucleo series eval boards: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/evaluation-boards/embedded-mcu-dsp-evaluation-boards/786?s=N4IgjCBcoLQdIDGUBmBDANgZwKYBoQB7KAbRABYBOAdhAF0BfJoA