What is better for a beginner, open-source or own projects?

Question

IT education

After Lippman and learncpp.com, I read Meyers, while simultaneously writing simple games for the console, while the snake is ready and in the process of Tetris. Everything seems to be going well, but some things are starting to be forgotten (you can’t get the understanding out of your head, but here are the syntax and details ...), in particular, little-used ones like move-semantics with smart pointers (after all, std::vector does everything for me), exceptions, template specializations.
From all this, I got the opinion that I am writing too trivial code, and I am not yet able to do something more complex and complex (like some kind of Hazel-level engine). Therefore, perhaps the best option would be to dig into some open-source project where all of the above things are already used. Of the interesting ones for myself, I found a blender. If you look superficially, then everything looks complicated, but perhaps it is worth it to fix some bugs there in the future or add new functionality, and in general to participate in the development of a project that is interesting to you.
On the other hand, it might be better to make your own projects, and not necessarily even console ones, but, for example, using Qt or SFML. That is, go to study specific technologies, and not continue to consider pure pluses with features that are used mainly for writing their own libraries.
As a result, the question arose, what is better in this case? Read open-source code, understand it and try to make pull requests, or do your own pet projects using libraries like SFML?

Answer 1

It's up to you to decide. Try both and choose what you like best. IMHO

Answer 2

Specify the area in which you want to work, because. c++ is a big language and has many uses.

From all this, I had the opinion that I am writing too trivial code

You should look for real vacancies in the desired field, at work they will tell you which code is better not to write.
The choice between a pet project and working with a github: write a pet project and read the sources / fix bugs of the projects you are interested in at the same time, for a beginner I advise you to look for programs in 3-15k lines of code. But only work will give normal experience.
It is not specified in the question, but if you want to work in the field of programming, then choose the field in which you want to work and consider / write projects in this field. If you go to work not in game dev, then no one will need your Tetris and snakes, because. you can just find this code already on dozens of sites, commits to blender will probably be of interest, but you will be asked what exactly you did, and so on.
As for me, the best option is to study the requirements of vacancies in the right field, study it, write a pet project that will interest the employer and try to find a job as an intern / junior.

Answer 3

1. Your projects are better. Firstly, the challenge, secondly, satisfaction in any case
2. Making pull requests to other people's projects is certainly good, but pull requests are far from always accepted and sometimes this happens for stupid reasons. And that hurts self-esteem.