Gaining experience?
Currently I am a student going for my Bachelor's in Computer Science. I currently have an Associate's in Information Technology. I currently hold a position as a help desk technician. I want to transition to becoming a developer. I'm learning in my classes about Java and I already know the basics of SQL, and I've done a few things with C#. How do I gain experience so that I can transition into a developer position with ease? I see on every job application unless it says internship 2 or 3+yrs experience.
I would see if you can work for the same company as a dev intern or jr dev. You are likely going to need to leave your help desk position to free up your time.
Just focus on gaining practical experience, remember to be patient. It will take a year or two to truly get your sea legs. Confidence doesn’t come from anywhere but sustained competence.
Take what you're learning in school and focus on Leetcode.
Also be sure to search specifically for "New Grad" roles. Find out when the career fair comes to town. Join your local engineer's society (NSBE etc) and go to their annual conference Ah, things I wish I knew back in college...
The only way to gain experience for you as a student is internship or open source contributions. Also, you can try working for a community or a non-profit organization in writing code and building assistive tools for them. You are already in a Bachelors in CS program, you will automatically transit to an Engineer role if you do good in interviews.