Jeremy's IT Lab. He has the full CCNA certification course on YouTube and Teachable. YouTube is free, while the course on Teachable is $49, I think. Other than that, the only difference between the two is that any videos he uploads will be uploaded more quickly to the Teachable app rather than YouTube.
CBT Nuggets is also an excellent supplement to a certification guide. While I've not found Wendell Odom's OCG particularly helpful, I've found a CCNA book on Amazon that is really good.
So as far as experience with switches go, that's really only necessary if you want to actually become a network engineer. Otherwise you just need to know what a switch does. You could move up to a server based NOC or SOC without hands on experience configuring routers and switches, though of course that experience is helpful.
First, finish the Net+, then move on these certs for additional networking knowledge:
It looks like a used copy of this CCT/CCNA book would set you back about $30.
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Also definitely start looking at tcpdump and wireshark. These are invaluable tools for the non-network engineer that is perhaps a sysadmin or analyst to use for network troubleshooting.
I've been looking for this as well. As you've said, pretty new so the main course material looks like it is that ridiculous $300 course from Cisco: great if your org will pay for it, not so great if you're trying to get an org in the first place.
Not a whole lot so far. There are a couple question/answer sheets available on Amazon's kindle marketplace. The "All-in-One" folks appear to be producing a CCT/CCNA book that will publish on December 11th. I've liked their stuff for CompTIA materials.
Udemy also has a few practice tests available for purchase, but they don't have a lot of ratings yet.
Beyond that, there are of course a whole slew of dubious question dump sites where you can download new and exciting viruses.
I will likely go for this cert in the future, and will use the All-in-One materials. Hope this helps!