Advice to Start a Career in DC

I am a 20 year old “cooked” college student in California in my 3rd year of Data Science. No real experience, no internships, gonna be honest—just been slacking off for the past 7 years. I work minimum wage and feel like I’m barely surviving. Everyday I feel more discouraged about the future of my field as it becomes more and more competitive and AI models like Claude doing the grunt work of 1-3 employees when prompted right. My dream is to move to a quiet state (been looking at Cheyenne, Wyoming) where cost of living and taxes are lower and I discovered careers in data centers where a lot of them appear to be clustered at and even expanding. Reading through this sub, it seems that the experience working is very heads down but job security is still decent if not better than white collar CS jobs, something that I feel fits my workflow and would ease my mind. To my understanding, it’s more technical and hands on while also learning on the job, so I’m not really sure what to do.

I plan to move out after graduation and get a temporary food job while learning more about the field and eventually applying for interviews, but is there any advice someone would give after reading all this? A timeline to expect? How hard it will be to nab an entry level role that still pays decent? Should I focus on applying to lesser names, potentially fail, and try for larger names like Microsoft, Meta, etc.?

I have heard getting certificates like A+ Network+ Server+ and BSC are recommended. There are also some courses like Microsoft’s Data Academy in the place I wish to go to (Wyoming). Is there anything else that would prepare me for interviews and the work ahead?