Is CCNA Worth It for a Final-Year InfoSec Student Targeting a SOC Role? Time Required Explained

The author, a fourth-year information security student, plans to start as a SOC (Security Operations Center) analyst after graduation. They are questioning the value of the CCNA certification for this type of role compared to skills like SIEM, incident response, hands-on labs (TryHackMe/HTB), Linux, or Security+. While they have foundational networking knowledge, they lack in-depth experience in routing and switching. The question also addresses how long it takes to obtain the CCNA.