Being a developer, I would suggest everyone who has interest in programming to actively involve in building a side project.
What kind of projects?
Anything. Literally "Anything" let it be a fun project, a game, a tool to simplify your task, a simple chrome extension, Or let it be a solution to a problem that you / the people around you face. Don't think too much on who would use this or will people value it. That's not the goal here. Just focus on your learning. 🚀
Who am I targeting?
Anybody who is interested in programming.
If you are a college student, you can utilize your time effectively by building projects that are fun / useful. This creates a proof of work. You'll realize the advantage of this later when you step into your career.
For working professionals, yes build things apart from your work. Try out new technologies and tools. If you don't have a portfolio or you've never deployed an app, go do it! what is stopping you. Don't lose interest in building stuffs once you've started a full-time role, there's a lot to explore. Allocate a separate time for your learning.
Why should you do?
There are several reasons to it
That's a best way for you to learn 🧑💻
Trust me. I've never found a better way to learn than building side projects. "Never Stop Learning"
Gain a deeper understanding 🧠
Let's assume, you have a problem statement and you ( as an individual / teamed up with people ) decided to build a solution for it. Now right from the ideation to the deployment phase you'll be involved. You never get this experience anywhere. Most people know only a part of software development.
Escape tutorial hell 🤯
This happens with newbies. Learning from tutorials is never a bad thing, but what happens most of the time is that you follow the step by step instructions by the tutor, things work well any you think you've learned something. But this is too far from actual software development process. Only when you start writing your own code, bring your ideas into reality, you'll come across issues / bugs. Yes my friend, debugging is a skill. You'll be better at it only if you do it.