Thanks for the answer, I am just looking to get some practice coding so I can try and one day get a job as a programmer, everywhere I apply I don't get many call returns because everyone wants experience. Its hard to get experience if no one gives you the chance to get some, so I want to start working on side projects to show them I can code
Age old dogma of what comes first ? the egg or chicken.
Freshers need to understand that experience doesnt need to be in a company. Build your own calculator, that counts as an experience. Get the meaning ?
I understand that part, the thing is, I am not going to bring in to a job interview a working calculator, they will look at me like I am crazy. What they want to see is you actively working with random people on the internet so that you can work and contribute to a team
You can consider contributing within an altcoin community. There are many opportunities out there!
If you enjoy C++ and the intricacies of making a Qt wallet, then you can be a coin dev. If you enjoy making apps, then you can be a web or mobile dev. I've touched coin development, but I enjoy making apps that brings real use cases to the coin much more. To be an app dev, you would probably need to get familiar with RPC and how that works. There are also tons of libraries in different languages for RPC.
If you are interested in making apps and becoming part of an active altcoin community, you can find many if you browse around. I would recommend
HYPER 
. If you like games, then this would be the community to be at! You can also find open source projects all over the place. For HYPER, I created this
github group. There aren't many projects on there yet. They are just open source projects that I have and want to work on. Outside of that, I have a few private repositories where I am working on something called "Hyper Gaming Gateway". More info is in my sig. If you're interested in that, you can PM me!
You are welcome to propose or work on a project anytime you want! If you're like me, you can get intimidated by large open source projects, especially when there isn't sufficient documentation and you don't really know where to get started. Like you, I also have a degree in CS, but I also have a day job. PM if you would like to work together and/or you want to join a coin community with lots of support!