No matter which one of these you choose, I'd recommend working on real (preferably open source) projects and putting them on Github so that you have something to show when you apply for jobs after 10 months.
Totally agreed! A recruiter I spoke to yesterday said, "I see that you have a presence on GitHub..." referring to one of my more popular OS projects, and then rambled on for about 15 minutes about his open source friendly client. I'm not saying you want to attract lots of rambling recruiters (because that's boring) but it means that people are recognising hard work and OS contributions as a good thing. It helps.
I will definitely try to work on my GitHub presence. Thanks!