Thoughts on becoming a junior cloud administrator, cloud engineer, etc?

I I see all of these influencers or YouTubers talk about how all you need is an associate level cert, entry level experience and projects to land a role as a junior cloud admin or cloud—I was wondering if you, how common is this? Would my time be better spent going the traditional route of becoming a system administrator while getting cloud admin certs or doing projects on the side? Or just trying to go for that cloud admin role?