Nevertheless, I have spent the last few years teaching myself programming on and off and I feel reasonably confident in my ability to make money from it (my focus was almost always on webdev, front and backend.) and build a semblance of a career now rather than starting 4 years down the road, and to also make up for lost time that I should've been spending in college.
The most flexible option I can think of besides an internship is to take up freelancing. I can't stress enough how much I don't want to be in a dead end retail job for the duration of college so I really need to make this work and would love some advice from people who have been down a similar road.
I tried doing freelancing with Upwork but I could never get a 1st customer. I thought the main problem was my GitHub portfolio and having no freelance history so when I thought about making my portfolio better I got hyper-fixated on what projects I should build, which basically meant nothing got built. I realized I need to understand what the large majority of potential customers would look for in portfolio, which is one of things I am hoping to clear up with this thread so I can better focus my attention on improving in those areas.
Also, generally speaking, is it a good idea to do freelancing while going full time to college? I have given it some thought, but I've never actually done this sort of thing before but I know that whatever happens I will need a source of income -- be it my current part time job (< 28hrs/week), this or something else. What I am really trying to do is hit two birds with one stone, make money and obtain experience in my chosen field to serve my career long term especially considering I am already at a disadvantage with people my age in this same field.
Any and all thoughts are welcome especially constructive criticism/advice, thank you.
This is what web dev freelancing will feel like, with the added challenge you have to go find the customer too
You could explore research options within your department, many faculty have undergrad research assistants which can evolve into paid positions, as they have funding exactly for this reason