An easy example of programmers art is creating images with paint 
An idea of making a game without cool-models and stuff could be a UI-based game. F.e. Rock-Paper-Scissors for mobile. For this you could only use images drawn with Paint or Gimp (to get a bit more professional looking stuff - at least some alpha).
If you really need Meshes, then install blender and make some simple models, which you import into UE4.
If you apply for programming studies, those who check you portfolio, should know that you are a programmer and not an artist (hopefully), means they shouldnt care about ugly pictures that much 