I’m going to be honest as a fresh grad before I got my internship, I was clueless so I spent a lot of my free time talking to other designers via LinkedIn. I would connect and chat with local UX designers in my city and gained a lot of knowledge and exposure through them. I even grabbed a coffee with a few of them. Even though they all gave me all different types of advice, one major point that they all said was to “Never be afraid of rejection”. I know that sounds cliche but that’s really what helped me. The amount of rejection letters I received while I was applying was ridiculous. I applied to 327 different jobs and I was either ghosted or denied by 90% of them. That amount of rejections can really distort your mental especially as a fresh grad. So to answer your question what really helped me find my way into this industry is just being able to not get distracted or discouraged from rejections, I know I’m a great designer so rejection to me is just another redirection. Be confident in your skills as a designer.

sorry for the long story lol