How to make it in the IT?

Hi. I am a junior student in a Computer Science college and have 1.5 years of software development experience in the past (Perl, VB, SQL). I have a lot of free time in the summer and was wondering what should I do in order to make it in the IT. I want to be one of the best programmers and eventually become a consultant, because thats what the best programmers become, I guess. Should I read some IT books in my free time? How should I figure out what books to read? There are so many technologies. Will recruiters value my extra reading and studying?

Also, I work at night doing student type job, but I want to switch to IT job. How can I do this? Are there part-time internships I can do in the mornings in Summer?

What should I do if I am looking for a job and there is a language that I dont know, but I want to learn it for the job. Can I say to the recruiter that I will learn this language on the job? Should I take a course in it? Can I just learn it on my own? How is it done in the IT industry? Because college teaches us only couple of languages but many programmers know so many languages.

Obviously you can't prepare yourself by trying to learn everything. You know what they say "jack of all trade, master of none..."
My best advice is to focus on an area you find most interesting. There are lots of different niche technologies you could go into where there is actual demand. Although you want to be careful not to limit yourself.
Recruiters value leadership and skills, as well as experience. Being a student, a great way to get experience is by getting involved in some real world application projects. Source Forge is a great place to collaborate with other programmers.
Also, a great place to try to figure out where to go from here, is to read through job ads on monster.com or yahoo jobs. Look for the jobs you're most interested in. Then see what kind of skill/experience they require.
That should give you some idea of how to plan your study/work time.
Good luck!
-J

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