As a guy who started in hell desk a million years ago, worked his way up to a senior network engineer, and is now in charge of hiring teams I can say this…

The certs help but being passionate about the field helps %1000 more. I interview way too many people that went through the process, checked the boxes, and can’t even talk to me about the tech. When we talk to candidates we want to hear about your curiosity and why you love this field. Sure at the end of the day it’s a job and we don’t need you dedicated to the company, but having a yearning to know how things work is very beneficial.

For your ccna, go through the basics but focus on learning the main protocols that are vendor agnostic. Look at other network os’s (juniper, artists, etc), learn some virtualization… lots of corps and other companies virtualize and that comes with virtual networking.

Stick with it, we need you and then some

That’s a fun arty favor, I love being able to print silly little toys for the kids that they cannot find on the shelf. Sure, it’s a mother silly plastic thing, but I made it for them and that’s neat imo