Ask HN: How to prepare for finding your first apprenticeship?

Hello,

I'd like to ask you for advice regarding career in programming. I'm currently a first year student in software engineering (informatyka stosowana) at Polish university. In future I'd like to try my luck at finding an apprenticeship, so that after I'm done with studies I will have some experience.

How should I prepare for that task? I know that the common advice for this is grinding Leetcode (i.e in general algorithms theory and so on) and having a good Github portfolio. But I've seen people being divided on that one, as I often found voices saying that most likely it is harmful. Related to that, what constitutes a good project to show? I've been toying with ideas of making games in C++ with some graphic library, but all my ideas seem derivative.

What would be the tasks I would do as an apprentice? I know that this depends of a looooot of things, but on average what would I be expected to do? (our teachers often scare us that our only job would be making coffee).