I'm a student who's learned the theory but hardly knows how to apply it, what are some good/cheap projects/programs I can do to gain experience and learn more practical skills?

As the title states I'm a student (Network & Security Management, though there's Ops stuff in there too), I've finished 80% of my education and passed all my classes with unremarkable grades and... I hardly know how to apply anything. My past few group projects I felt like I was freeloading off my groupmates, and the quality of my internship work was straight up disappointing too.

I've got a year left before I'm entering the workfield and I don't want to be one of those shmucks with book knowledge and no actual skills, so I've decided the best way to learn this is to just do. Except... I don't really have any ideas for what to do. There's plenty of ideas and online resources about getting hands-on experience with programming, but for networking/operations/security the only thing I can think of is hackthebox.

As such, I'm hoping someone in this sub happens to know of some interesting at-home projects or online programs/resources that I could sink my teeth into, I'd greatly appreciate it!