How to choose your path?

Question

IT education

Question for experienced IT-specialists.
I graduated from the IT-specialty at the university, I am entering the master's program. I have no work experience, but at the university there were many assignments, term papers. I can say that I spent four years of my life not in vain.
I received fundamental knowledge and intros in many subject areas (from digital signal processing to software project management), and now I understand that it's time to set global goals and understand what interests me and what I want to do in the future.
I leafed through hh.ru, read articles on Habré, but I still didn’t have a complete picture of various specializations. There are testers, developers, architects, managers, analysts. On the other hand, there is Web, Game Dev, Enterprise, Mobile Development, R&D. How do I know where to go?
In the future, I want to solve complex interesting problems, work with advanced technologies, and create these technologies. I don't want to type up Web pages or make forms in applications to access the database. I like mathematics, operating systems, I like to study algorithms. I understand that the basic knowledge that I have received is not enough for me to solve such problems. There is a desire to learn. But I really want to work somewhere, I really want to try something.
I want to ask experienced IT-specialists what I should spend 2 years of my master's studies on. The logical and natural answer is that to study. But I consider it necessary to try real tasks, have some income and work experience by the time I graduate from the master's program (this corresponds to my life values). However, I can't decide on a direction. Will it be SPA programming in JS or some true C++ programming under Linux for AVR microcontrollers doing serverless speech recognition?
In other words, I want to choose a specific subject area/specialization/technology/language/platform for in-depth study, but at the same time strike a balance between having interesting tasks and employability for me, a university graduate with no work experience.
In the future, I am attracted by the work of a system architect, researcher, perhaps a leader.
What should I do for two years?

Answer 1

In the future, I want to solve complex interesting problems, work with advanced technologies, and create these technologies. I don't want to type up Web pages or make forms in applications to access the database.

I recommend that you take off your rose-colored glasses as soon as possible and abandon the romanticization of the sphere. Behind complex and large tasks are months or years of a terrible routine.
Determine a list of areas of interest. Come up with a learning task for each of them (some small project), and implement it in turn, making notes in the margins about your own feelings from the process. In the end, the conclusion will come by itself. This is the best way to decide, and on the forums no one will advise you sensibly, just every sandpiper will praise his swamp from his bell tower.
Perhaps you will come to the conclusion that it is better to leave this whole routine with "forms for accessing the database" to people with a technical mindset, and move into an interesting and relaxed project management yourself))

Answer 2

- I graduated from Oxford and Cambridge Universities
- write down: "conscript can read and write"

at the university they haven’t taught you anything yet (well, except for taking a lab), spend these two years on education

Answer 3

Write a good js framework.

Answer 4

at the university there were many assignments, term papers. I can say that I spent four years of my life not in vain.

Are you serious?
If at the same time he was engaged in self-education, and not just handed over labs, then yes - not in vain. Handing over labs and writing code for real applications are very different things.
Why are you asking other people's opinions? Everyone likes something different and for sure you have something that you like more than the rest, and if not, then try a little bit of everything and choose. When you decide on a direction, set goals and study, write code, study, write code.

Answer 5

Well, at the university, if you studied to be a programmer, you tried at least five languages, from assembler to java, you probably should have understood which one you like.