One of the best things I did was staying a little late to ask questions in class and going to office hours. There was one professor I was interested in working with and he had a lab. I got to the the only undergrad that worked in his grad lab. Being in an environment where it's a little competitive is how you find passionate people. A non-academic example, I ended up going to group fitness classes and ended up becoming friends with all of the instructors of my classes. One of the instructors ended up offering me and a group of other people scholarships to get certified as fitness instructors. I met some great passionate people doing that.
In terms of CS, I went to hackathons basically every weekend. I was lucky enough to go to a Uni where there was a strong culture around hackathons and we also hosted out own. I got to meet passionate people hosting it and I also got to meet great people when we went to the neighboring universities across northeast USA. I noticed that I got along best and had my favorite discussions with people who took on teaching roles, for classes it was professors but in research and clubs it was other people closer to my age. Most Unis have a dedicated work area, sometimes an open lab, where people of your major go to work. My uni had a few, and usually it's near the research library or in a specific building where most of the advanced classes for those majors are. I remember being stuck and having trouble understanding something and I went to those rooms and it was just a bunch of other students working or chilling, they kept one assigned person there to supervise and help but usually there's others there too. I went up to them and asked some CS questions and we ended up having a 3 hour discussion. I probably learned more about CS in that talk than I did throughout some entire semester lab classes.
In terms of CS, I went to hackathons basically every weekend. I was lucky enough to go to a Uni where there was a strong culture around hackathons and we also hosted out own. I got to meet passionate people hosting it and I also got to meet great people when we went to the neighboring universities across northeast USA. I noticed that I got along best and had my favorite discussions with people who took on teaching roles, for classes it was professors but in research and clubs it was other people closer to my age. Most Unis have a dedicated work area, sometimes an open lab, where people of your major go to work. My uni had a few, and usually it's near the research library or in a specific building where most of the advanced classes for those majors are. I remember being stuck and having trouble understanding something and I went to those rooms and it was just a bunch of other students working or chilling, they kept one assigned person there to supervise and help but usually there's others there too. I went up to them and asked some CS questions and we ended up having a 3 hour discussion. I probably learned more about CS in that talk than I did throughout some entire semester lab classes.