It does not matter which college, branch, semester you're studying in
What matters is "Are doing what you're supposed to?". Know what companies actually expect from a graduate and work on that.
Start learning with a group of friends with same mindset as your's
This is a very fast way to learn and you remember concepts for longer time. Teach, learn and grow together. It is a beautiful journey.
Choose a mentor carefully
If you are planning to join a company, ask people who have been placed in it that how they did it. If you don't ask, you will not know actually what path to follow to get placed, and you might end up blindly trying different paths and getting your time wasted.
Do not run behind money, run behind skills
Money is very tempting initially, but in the long run, skills matter not money. You can crack off-campus placements by skills, and you get skilled when you actually put effort for learning not just for earning stipend, etc.
Don't make the same mistake that you had made for IIT
Just as our goal was getting admission into IIT, now our goal is FAANG. The fact is, not getting into IIT does not mean failure in life, not getting placed in FAANG is also not failure in life. There are a lot of opportunities around the world, you just need to explore to know. But prepare for FAANG placements, its very important, just that don't make it end goal, there are a lot of exciting things around the world which you can pursue other than FAANG.
DSA or CP
I would just give an analogy, practicing DSA will make you a national player, practicing CP will make you an international player. If you want to get placed in India, DSA should be strong. If you want to sharpen your skills in coding, practice CP and participate in their contests. Really, CP makes you a very good coder! You can crack interviews more easily than your peers.
Unless you explore and experience how will you know what it actually is?
Explore every domain and choose what you're interested in. Exploring is like trying out, if you never explore you might never know there was something you would've gained interest in if you had tried it.
Join the learning communities
Environment effects our behaviours. If you stay in a highly motivated environment, your actions slowly start to change and you eventually become more productive. There are many communities out there who are always making new projects, doing coding, participating in hackathons etc. Join them, you will enjoy learning with them!
Have a roadmap, it helps!
When you have a roadmap, you stay on track. You don't end up wasting time on unnecessary stuff.
Open source contribution
Github has a lot of amazing projects you can contribute to, once you start contributing to open source, you start enjoying the process. You help others with their bugs and they help you, it makes learning very interesting and enjoying.

These are some of the tips I got to know from a video of a student who has experience with lot of internships and open source contributions.