Been learning for about a year and a half, currently a bit under HSK-3 level and feeling kind of frustrated

I've been taking Chinese in school, and I feel kind of disappointed with my progress so far. I'm not a heritage speaker, so I started from absolute zero as opposed to many people who started already able to speak semi-fluently, so that definitely makes things slower, but I still feel frustrated I'm not better than I am. At this level, I don't feel like I can do anything more than impress my Chinese friends' parents, you know? I can't understand native content, I can't really hold real-world conversations about anything but the most basic subjects, etc etc. I guess I'm just frustrated that even after making a fair amount of progress I'm still so far away from any real usage, you know? Does anyone have advice for making it through this section of the process? I'm not going to stop the classes, I'll be taking them for at least three years total, but it just feels like a slog when I can't see any progress being made.