I like to think that the things that will get me hired at a company are the pet projects that I choose to work on (rather than a degree, or "notable" classes I'

I like to think that the things that will get me hired at a company are the pet projects that I choose to work on (rather than a degree, or "notable" classes I've taken). What's worked best for me is just emailing startups I genuinely want to work for with a one-sentence description of me, and a question (wanna meet up? is a summer internship a possibility?). I also include a sentence describing the coolest thing I've worked on (inspired by the SuS application). It's worked so far (and I'm only a freshman, I'm sure you have way more to talk about!).