There are many practical ways that a college student could learn professional ethical hacking / penetration testing to prepare for a job. One thing that students need to remember is that communication, report writing, email writing are an integral part of every job and hence just focussing on technical aspects is not sufficient. They must learn to communicate, interview, write professional reports, write professional emails etc. Following are the steps one can follow and keep repeating to become ready:

1. Install Kali Linux, DVWA, metasploitable 

2. Install testing tools such as Burpsuite, nmap etc.

3. Start testing DVWA and metasploitable (all levels)

4. Familiarize yourself with OWASP top 10, understand common terms such as vulnerability, threat, risk, likelihood, impact, Patches, patch management etc.

5. Write a formal VAPT report and classify gaps into low, medium or high severity

6. Present the report to a friend of yours. Record it and listen to it

7. Repeat the above with a different application (bwapp, portswigger labs etc.)

8. Simultaneously register in test hacking platforms such as Hackthebox , tryhackme and start solving boxes