Recommended audience: CS students
Austin Henley shares some properties of a good side project. Personally, I think having a clear shippable objective is what most people lack, and prevents them from ever being complete.
I remember having side-projects suggestions during my courses. Maybe that’s something I have to incorporate in mine.
Most of what I’ve learned during my degree was doing side-projects. From competing in hackathons, creating a junior company, organizing conferences, doing a couple of research internships, and doing some freelancing work, these projects all taught me something that was not in the syllabus. That’s what separates you from the average student, and what will get you a good job in a world where unemployed software engineers are aplenty.