How to get a computer programming job right after college?

From someone who was in similar shoes to you not too long ago, my advice is: Do side projects. Anything that catches your interest, try to make it into a project. Going to school and getting good marks is great and learning the theory is very essential. But practical applications of your newfound knowledge is different so by doing projects and applying what you know before you look for jobs is what makes you valuable because it doesn't just give you technical knowledge; it demonstrates your characteristics. This is an extension of the first point. Constantly try to look for ideas and think of problems in the real world that either haven't been solved or could need improvements in their solutions. By doing this, you're essentially adopting an entrepreneur-like mindset which shows you take initiative and like to solve real-world problems. From my experiences and observations, employers love this. By doing these things, your chances of getting internships during college increase. It's important to start programming as early as possible because then by the time you graduate you'll have a lot of experience under your belt. Before settling for a job after graduation, try to get multiple internships. You may be interested in different things from time to time so explore those interests and pursue the one that stands out. Maybe you'd like to do web application development (Rails) now and in the future you'd like to work with cloud computing (as a project in an internship) to expand your skill set. Or maybe you'll gain an appreciation for Artificial Intelligence in your upper years if you take any courses in that. To increase your chances of getting a job you like, try within your upcoming years to push yourself in terms of learning new technologies. By new technologies, I don't just mean languages. I mean take online courses out of the class to learn content not covered in college classes. Learn about networks, computer architecture, mobile, etc. Everything that is related to software only makes you a better candidate for tech jobs because it gives you a broader understanding of how the whole system is working together to output the final product(s). But remember, don't just jump into something extremely unfamiliar. Start with small, simple, manageable projects that you can handle and gradually increase the complexity of your projects. By doing this, you'll gain confidence and interest in tackling more challenging work. Then it just becomes fun! Good luck!

As Scott says you need practice. Another mindset freshers have is more technologies in resume == assured job. That's not what we really want, we require people who are excellent at a technology, process or thought. So you get this only by practicing. Join Github and raise issues on various projects ( Genuine please), contribute to open source projects too on Github and Google Code. Subscribe to tags on Stackoverflow and answer the questions you know the answer for that's all that i did as far as i know

Maybe you should check out https://www.hackerschool.com/. I think it's pretty cool from what I read and it sounds like what you need. Also, remember CS isn't exactly programming. You may want to read http://blog.ammichael.com/2013/04/i-didnt-want-computer-science.html and http://robpatro.com/blog/?p=207 to clear things up for yourself. If you do go to college, check out http://www.google-melange.com/ when you join college.

It all comes down to building your portfolio and sharing your hard work with as many people as possible. This blog post also had some really great tips: http://www.digitalprofessionalinstitute.com/5-tips-getting-job-programmer/?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=answer&utm_campaign=lightspan. I hope they work for you!