Glad you took it to heart.
Keep in mind in the real world, there are rarely ever 4 hours crits of anything. At best you’ll maybe get 60 minutes of peoples time, and in an interview you need to be prepared to present your entire body of work, personality, and skill sets in 30 minutes.
Focus on improving your skills in a way that pushes you towards what you think you would like to do. Also ask yourself if there are areas you want to work in, what does an ID person do in those fields. For example, “Renewable energy” is very broad. Do you want to design circuit box panels for solar farms?
If you want to design toys then show how your sense of play impacts your designs, and do side projects which show how your skills of sculpting, sketching, color and graphics are top notch. Orient your portfolio in a way that your “Side projects” are just as well designed and considered as your academic projects. I don’t need two sections to show what you did for credit and what you did for fun if there are examples of good design that can be found in both that will resonate with your target audience.
Your job as a designer is to communicate clearly and effectively with your target audience, and right now your target audience is going to be hiring managers, not your peers. Focus on honing that delivery with the right person in mind and you will get much further.