Coming to the end of the first year of my CS degree, we've done some Java but just the core stuff; manipulating strings and arrays, inheritance, implementing logic etc. I visit this website daily and I see so much stuff that is beyond me; using frameworks; managing databases etc. It makes me feel like I've just learned the syntax of Java, and there is so much more to do with it. My question is though, how do I get there? I don't think I'm advanced enough to join an open source project, which seems to be suggested often (though I'd love to) and I've looked at other similar questions on here (like this one) but even then I don't think that'd work for me.. firstly, could somebody try give me some commonly used frameworks etc and how and what they are used for? Where would be a good place to start? How did you get started in using the things you do?

Or perhaps you think I'm going down the wrong route. Should I learn another language, and just wait until the moment occurs where it's clear what I should be doing? I'm only in the first year of my degree, so far we've lightly covered Haskell and Java, and I've done a little HTML and CSS in my free time. I know that next year we cover python, so perhaps I should just wait till then and see if I prefer that? I feel like I also risk learning something in depth and then never using it...

I suppose I'm also asking for personal experiences; was there a point where you felt you'd exceeded the basic grasp of a language (does not necessarily have to be Java related) and reach a more "advanced" level?

I guess I'll put subjective tag on this, but really I just want to know how to get beyond the basic understanding of a language.