New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: What is your recommended path for getting into freelancing?

Ask HN: What is your recommended path for getting into freelancing?
5 by khaled_ismaeel | 4 comments on Hacker News.
tldr: what is your best advice for a competitive programmer wanting to start freelancing (possibly taking it as a full time job even)? I am a computer science student with a long history of programming and mathematics competitions. I believe I am proficient enough for real life projects and I would like to try my luck with freelancing (I also fancy the freelancing lifestyle, being free and all). A quick search on Google lead me to platforms such as upwork, freelancer, fiverr, and others. They seem to be too full of spam, however (students asking for homework and tests and similar). I had the feeling that toptal could provide a more serious atmosphere, but my application was refused because I had less than two years of experience. It seems to me that the freelancing platforms are very hard to penetrate for a student with no work experience. What advice can you give for a person in my situation? Thanks everyone