SysAdmin Intern for 6 months, but I want to be a Network Engineer. What should I laser-focus on?

Hi everyone,

I just landed a 6-month System Administrator internship at a mid-sized company. Long-term, my heart is set on becoming a Network Engineer (hopefully aiming for CCNP/Cloud Networking down the line).

I know I need to crush my actual SysAdmin duties (AD, O365, basic server patching) to get a good reference, but I have 6 months of real enterprise access and I want to use it strategically to pivot my skills toward networking.

For those of you in Networking or who have made this jump, what specific things should I focus on during these 6 months to make myself a strong Network Eng candidate later?

Here is my current "battle plan" – please tell me if I'm wasting time or missing something:

1. Volunteer for the "Dirty Work": I plan to immediately volunteer to rack/stack new switches, run cables, and label ports with the network team. I want to get hands-on with the physical layer (SFPs, stacking cables) early.

2. Master the SysAdmin-Network Overlap: Instead of just clicking "Next" in the GUI, I want to deep-dive into the networking parts of my SysAdmin role:

   · Windows/Linux Firewall rules (iptables/Windows Firewall).

   · DHCP scopes and IP helper configurations.

   · DNS records (A, PTR, CNAME) and how they resolve internally.

   · IIS/Nginx reverse proxy and load balancer configs.

3. Troubleshooting First: Whenever a server goes down, I plan to start my troubleshooting at Layer 1/2/3 before looking at the OS. I want to get fluent in tracert, netstat -rn, nmap, and reading routing tables.

4. Shadowing: I want to ask the network lead if I can sit in during their maintenance windows (even if it means staying late) just to watch them push configs to the core switches/firewalls.

5. Lab Time: I’m studying for my CCNA in my off-hours. I plan to use the knowledge from the corporate network (VLANs, OSPF, BGP if they have it) to visualize what I'm reading in the OCG.

My big questions to you:

· Should I focus on learning the CLI (Cisco/Juniper) heavily, or should I spend my time learning Network Automation (Python/Ansible/APIs) given I only have 6 months?

· How do I approach the network team without sounding like I'm trying to escape my SysAdmin manager?

· What is the #1 skill you wish junior network engineers had that they usually lack?