Good information...

Another point to make, I had to learn at current employer, is timezone on your SQL Servers. I imagine most DBAs deal with servers within their on timezone but we actually have our servers set to UTC since we go across multiple timezones within the US. Something to be aware of if you may do consulting work or something.

I have also heard of guys who setup the maintenance plan but leave the schedule blank. They then use a SQL Agent job and in one of the steps call the maintenance plan when they want it. That way when you are doing a lot of things maybe altering data, you can call that backup maintenance plan more than once to cover yourself. Then also if you have a mix of things you do on your DB that require T-SQL but other things setup easier in maintenance plan, it can give you more flow control within a SQL Agent job. I had never thought about doing it like that when I heard it.