Also get as much support & troubleshooting experience as you can. That to me is the actual foundation. If you can't troubleshoot issues, knowing the protocols and such doesn't really do you any good. Most networking/systems type jobs deal mostly with troubleshooting issues, being issued a project with certain parameters and designing a network or systems around those, etc.
This is the biggest thing I see with all the kids coming out of school now, they have some book knowledge and know the buzz words but have no applicable troubleshooting ability or real world applicable knowledge in order to put the knowledge they have into the real world. They get faced with an issue and sit there scratching their heads like monkeys and have no idea what to do.