I'm a Computer Information Systems and Technology student at UT Dallas, and most of what I know about networking and infrastructure came from building things myself instead of just reading about them.
That turned into a home lab running Active Directory across four VMs (a domain controller, a routing server, a file server, and a client), plus a Raspberry Pi that keeps an eye on all of it and tells me when something goes down.
I recently got my CompTIA Network+ and I'm looking to start my career in IT and networking. The projects and qualifications pages have the details.