And yeah, it would be great to chat. Here is my mail: aman@amandavinci.me Or, you can go to my website for social media contacts: http://amandavinci.me/
If you are sure you do not want to go to grad school (which is very difficult to decide at this point) focus more on projects. Try to get an internship at a good startup and prepare for interviews hard (read DSA). Going to a top employer like Google, MS, Directi will help you get over the second-grade brand. All of these care more about DSA instead of all projects and specialized knowledge in ML and AI. I know preparing for interviews is boring compared to doing projects but take this advice seriously if you want to get hired at one of the places I listed.