Stop applying for jobs and get involved in Greek life, sports, arts and working part time in the cafe serving food? You will meet so many people who are involved in your field and you get labelled as something other than a programmer.

This is terrible advice. Apply, cold call, create projects, job fairs, get co-op opportunties and ambush are better ways. Hackathons, github projects or small businesses can help. 9/10 CEOs will ignore your cold outreach but some won't.

Getting too busy making friends at the Greek houses will land you a marketing role if you are lucky. People need to associate you wish your craft. If they know you as a social guy you will get social roles. Any developer too social is suspect for many and ends up at best a pm.

When I was coming up people went into hardware/certifications to bridge the gap but moving from hardware to software was a gap too big for many as they became typecast.