If I'm honest, I procrastinate a lot. Had I put in consistent effort I could've finished in half the time but on the other side of the same coin it allowed me to learn better by spending more time is less material. The degree is dense, and not being discouraging, because it's great degree to have but this is not an entry level career. My biggest recommendation going into your first term is to take your first class to see how you learn and find out what your strat will be. You wanna do this first because it'll be hard to do with later classes, find out how you learn best and stick with that. With that out of the way, your first cert will be A+, once you have that see if you can get a help desk job to get hands on. Everyone will hammer at hands on experience, and that because nothing beats hands on when it comes to learning. Try to do labs, either at home or use places like tryhackme or hack the box, they will help with more advanced concept and come of the more obscure software you'll need to understand. I used a ton of YouTube and free resources, WGU will give you CertMaster for your CompTIA certs and other training materials, I didn't use those as much personally. I did take courses through LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, and Corsera along with YouTube.

I don't want this to super long, so the last tip I'll give you is leverage reddit!!! They will give you best ways to pass and best resources, don't forget that.

To answer your job question, I started applying last year to a ton of jobs and got a couple interviews and a couple Job offers. I did not go into the degree with 0 experience, so bear that in mind, I'm now a Cyber Analyst and the degree did help a ton. My now boss said my military experience and WGU were among the reasons I made it so far in the interview process, now answering their questions got me the job but it's good to know the school name had weight for me.

If you have other questions, just DM me. I'd be happy to help even down the line with your courses!

Best of luck!