I'm an inexperienced student (having learned up to data structures and algorithms through various online resources) of computer science, and I'm hoping to get a job as a developer some time after I've gotten a few independent projects done.

My question is, how should I choose which projects to work on? I've been looking around stackoverflow-- people usually say to pick whatever you're interested in, but I don't have enough experience to even know what specifically I'm interested in, and possibly more importantly, I don't know what some common beginner project types are.

Essentially, I'm at the gap between course work (and the projects entailed in those classes) and real programming, and I don't quite know how to start. If any of you have any ideas, I'd really appreciate it.