It's funny to me that items 1-6 in your technical tips pretty much boil down to "be an A-average student in a CS/CprE program". I think there's an alternative,

It's funny to me that items 1-6 in your technical tips pretty much boil down to "be an A-average student in a CS/CprE program". I think there's an alternative, and it fits into your ABC. Build useful software. If you've got an idea, implement it, and if possible, open-source it. In the process, you'll likely rely on a bunch of open source software, and maybe you'll run into some limitations. Every limitation is an invitation for <i>you</i> to contribute. And if you can build a bit of a track record, instead of proving yourself with textbook algorithms, you can do by showing your portfolio of actually code.