Seniors and Alums, have a doubt on market readiness, please do help.

Hi, I have been pursuing OMSCS since Spring 2026, and I have completed CS7643 Deep Learning and CS6310 Software Architecture & Design. I intend to complete the specialization in Machine Learning.

However, what I find is that while the course content is top notch, it actually requires serious practice and deliberate upskilling beyond the course if you need to be employable in said specialization. Which is fine, but between my day job, courses, job searching and interviewing, I'm not able to allocate time to specifically practice what I'm learning in this course and get more info about what is done in that field. Which just leaves me with the knowledge in the course, which is great but I feel nowhere close to what the industry demands.

How can I solve this discrepancy? Is there no other way than to power through?