Ever since i first played Metroid Prime on my Nintendo Gamecube as a kid i knew i wanted to work with games in the future. Later on as i grew older i realized that im most interested in technology and computer graphics. In primary/middle school i spent a lot of time messing around in 3d modeling applications, since i had no idea how to even begin doing anything else. In high school/early college i was having fun making projects in unity/unreal, since i (wrongfully) thought programming my own app would be way too hard. About a year ago i started coding in OpenGL, did basic apps, finished multiple tutorials. Since then i tried all the other api's vulkan, direct3d 11/12, and decided to settle for direct3d 11. I've done a few tutorials, read some books, compiled code from multiple sources ive learned from to make a frankenstein project (like a 3d world terrain, having custom high detailed models, skeletal animation, lighting, ssao, reflections, tesselation, compute workloads, shadow mapping, particle effects etc.). I've learned a lot, but i don't know what im supposed to do next. I think i have a good grasp of the api already, i've been trying to grow in different ways after that, trying to improve my code by learning modern c++ best practices and features, learning graphics debugging, looking at other projects, other tutorials, reading more advanced programming and computer graphics books, but i dont think any of this work for me anymore. I'm not burned out, in fact im probably more excited about learning stuff than ever, i just dont know what path should i take now, should i just make my own clean project from scratch that i could be proud of and show to potential employer in the future? If yes should this be just a tech app, or should i make a “game” from it, or something else? Should i go more into direct3d 12? I still have a year and a half of college to complete so i cant really look for a job right now.