personal project ideas?

A fun way to learn OS and low-level programming is to build small tools that interact directly with the system instead of jumping straight into a full operating system. Stuff like writing a tiny shell, a custom memory allocator, a file system simulator, or even a basic task scheduler teaches a lot without becoming overwhelming.

I learned more from debugging simple multithreading projects than from tutorials. Emulators and terminal-based apps are also surprisingly good practice for understanding how systems work underneath.