As a computer science college student, I was so passionated to become software engineer. I had learnt that following college curriculum is not enough to take me to my dream, then I needed to learn practical knowledge such as backend, frontend, etc.
It is always important to showcase our achievement. When we were learning backend for example, then you need to tell your future employer that you are worth to hire. The only way that came up to me was portfolio, certification was not really a thing 4 years ago at least on my circle.
Working on portfolio gives validation that you gain something from your learning journey. It is a milestone that you have already passed certain level.
Building a portfolio was not suited to my learning characteristic. I got intrigued to learn everything until I became confused on what to learn. For example, choosing programming language to pick was not an easy stuff. After I had decided the language, some said that we need to master specific framework popular enough.
The thing is, building a portfolio wasn't really great.
I don't quite asked on my portfolio when conducting technical interview. During my first job hunting, it was take home project that they were interested to. They did ask much a glimpse of my portfolios.
Later when I was looking my second employer, they asked me on my working experience. Something that I did for my past employer.
If I had known working experience matters most, I would not have been working on portfolio, I would have got working experience like internship or part time. A true and real working experience that I can tell to recruiter, rather than something imaginary of made up usecase (portfolio).
I am not saying portfolio is a bad thing and everyone should avoid working on it. Here, I am giving you an option that might need more attention: working experience.
You may have problem on finding your first job because you don't have any experience at all. That's when portfolio matters the most. But you need to be aware, your first job is a part of your learning journey, hence you do not need to work all out on the portfolio.
As long as you learn something, able to create a simple demonstrative portfolio to validate your knowledge, you do not need to go any further to just get your first job.
I wish we have a good luck on our software engineer career journey.