Ask HN: How do I seek work as a self-trained programmer?

So unfortunately I'm not doing too well in my CS program, particularly in the mathematics. I enjoy the intellectual engagement but I have difficulty keeping pace with a full course load. At the same time, programming is one of the few skills I have and feel like I can consistently exploit, next to maybe report-writing and to an extent public speaking. AFAICT the latter are auxiliary to careers and are difficult to make as a primary thrust with living pay. (I'm not too confident this is 100% true, but I suspect that it is true.)

So irregardless of my academic performance I wish to develop my programming ability. Becoming a competent self-taught, self-marketing programmer seems like a fairly large task. I am wondering how the self-taught among us broke into the industry, whether the same industry conditions hold now as then, and how to go about finding gainful employment as a self-taught programmer.

If anyone has any insight or advice on these questions, I humbly accept it.