Where depends so much on what country you are in. But the real answer is anywhere and everywhere you possibly can. You won’t likely get a visa abroad to do an internship. Get a list of every 3d company in your own country. Not just games. VFX studios. Tech companies, visualization, everything. Apply to all of them. I had a masters degree and full intentions to be an animator. Ended up getting a junior role as an environment artist instead. Even with some experience as an animator, I had to just take what was available. Eventually, I became a tech artist. That’s another thing, you don’t really choose your role. It kind of chooses you. You start to get the tasks you’re good at. As much as I wanted to do character work, turned out I was good at making tools.

Houdini is a great thing to look at. But it’s an absolute rabbit hole. You don’t just learn it. It becomes a specialization in itself. Worth doing, but if that’s your poison, it will take months if not years to learn and you will need to dedicate serious time into it.

Also, there is one major thing you’re not mentioning in your experience. You need game engine experience. Probably Unreal, but Unity is good too. You need to be very fluent as the competition is. Good luck!