While I'm not anywhere near as qualified as others here to comment, I can second a few things that have been said. Firstly, familiarize yourself with a game engine. Unreal3 Engine or CryEngine would be my recommendations. A more specific recommendation would be to pick up a copy of UT3 (ideally the collectors edition with…
I sort of liked the ship... I would start with vehicles in your case. Your next step is to show you can model and texture things in a realistic fashion. Check these tutorials out. Like the clock you made for example, get some reference for a grand father clock and make as realistic as possible with a small texture, 256 x…
Like these guys have said, pick a particular area you want to specialize in and go all out on it. I think, despite what you school may say, that unless you are an animator with moving characters and such, that you don't need a show reel. If you going to do props then all you need is kick ass prints or still images of those…