Any suggestions? Where to start?
* Re-create one of your favorite websites or apps
* Create games, these can be as simple or as complicated as you like, and might be a re-creation of a classic (Tetris, Solitaire) or something from a relatively well-trodden genre (visual novels with Ren'py, idle games à la cookie clicker, text adventure games) or something all-new
* Corollary for the above, participate in game jams
* Contribute to open source projects
* Create interesting toys or demos (fractal rendering/zooming, "single-div" CSS demos, fun-looking pixel blotting with SDL or JS canvas, generative art)
* Try your hand at programming microcontrollers for automation, robotics, building keyboard or other peripherals
* Write scripts to automate away boring work, either at home or for your job. You might be surprised how much time/energy you can save by stringing together some python or building some IFTT/Zapier workflows. Automate the Boring Stuff with Python could be a good starting point here.
There are other ideas, but the most important thing is to pick something you find enjoyable, and don't be ashamed to drop a project when it ceases to be interesting.
Some of the most long-lived hobby projects are sustained by just one or two hour nightly sessions, or by weekend hacking.
Wherever you feel comfortable. Start with things as simple as 'Hello, World' and build up from there.
Give yourself a project. Any sort of project. It doesn't have to be useful, it's just there for you to learn with. As you progress in that project, you will strike roadblocks. Each one of which is a learning opportunity.
As you demolish all the roadblocks in your progress to your goal project, you will be learning all the way. In fact you will see, as you progress in the project, places where you could have coded things in a better way previously.
When you reach your goal project's completion, throw all of that code away. (It was rubbish anyway, wasn't it? Now that you can see it with an expert's eye.) Now rewrite it from scratch, but using all of your new-found knowledge.
Again, you will strike new roadblocks. Fix those. Rinse and repeat, learning as you go.
I have a 'pet' project, which is an emulator for an actual 1980s computer running CP/M. I have written and re-written that project at least a dozen times, in Z80 assembly, x86 assembly on MSDOS, C on UNIX using plain text, C on Linux using a curses-based text-UI, C on Linux using a GTK+ GUI. Each time that project grows a little, converging more and more towards the 'perfect' emulation of that original hardware computer.
Arduino
Here are some arduino projecst for inspiration: Bin Day Indicator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLU1cOYf1dY Freezer Temp Alert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z59XS2wHOB8 Pedals to use with computer/gaming https://www.reddit.com/r/PUBATTLEGROUNDS/comments/9q4rph/hea...
Laravel has a great community it's a PHP Framework https://laracasts.com/series/laravel-8-from-scratch
You can build pretty much anything with it.
Pick something basic, maybe something to track something you collect.
Laravel Livewire is a frontend framework that makes it really easy to create real time calculating forms.
Programming is like other hobbies/crafts in that observing what others do and how they've done something will teach you about how you can better approach problems. There certainly is a barrier to entry, but if you've already taken some university level classes you likely have the basics down. There's social conventions to collaborating, but that shouldn't be a huge blocker. In my opinion, contributing to different organization should let you sample different project domains and either help you decide where to stick around or what types of personal projects might interest you.
The puzzles from previous years are all there too but being able to work through the problems along with other people on the subreddit and share ideas, solutions, tips etc. made it much more enjoyable than it would have been without the community interaction.
Another option might be Arduino. After years of writing CRUD, my love for programming reignited when I was able to make LED blink.
either something that says to you: "I could make a program to do that" or "I got an idea for a program that would work better." Or maybe something thats says, I think that would be fun.
If you are looking for fun, might consider Processing which is a digital arts oriented language - https://processing.org/
Build the next Temple OS, driverless car apps, or a facebook rival, whatever, you probably wont get far (then again, you never know) but you will at least have a better story to share with people other than "I'm working on some new arduino to github interface..." :-)
You may want to pick a platform/language that has a low-level intro course that walks you through a small project.
Let the challenges you encounter lead you to finding solutions and building your skills.
Pick an easier language , I suggest Python or Javascript.
This is another good place to start: https://xkcd.com/1205/
Find out what you're spending time on, especially little things that you do 50 times a day. You don't even have to be good at it. Take Simone Giertz for example. She makes completely pointless robots and people love them.
My personal side interests is procedural generation. I think it's a neglected field because you can just invest in AI/ML and get better results, but there's a certain level of beauty in procedural things. There's some interesting examples at https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/
You can find some free material over here: 1) medium.com 2) freecodecamp.org 3) hackernoon.com 4) udemy.com
Best of Luck!