Do You Need an IT or CS Degree to be a Successful DBA?
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Oh, I have little desire to enter management either, but for those who do have such ambitions it is a consideration.
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Anye Mercy
"Service Unavailable is not an Error" -- John, ENOM support
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya in "Princess Bride"
"Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice." -- Will Durant -
lcardwell (5/8/2009)
cherie j sheriff (5/8/2009)
There are so many methods of getting the education out there, college just isn't up to the challenge yet.Hmmm.... that's a pretty bold statement, and often what I've heard from those who haven't ran the course.
My, obviously hamstrung, interpretation of what Cherie was saying is that, regardless of the length of the list of bullet points, degrees are -more- used as employment and advancement filters than as bare metal training for what the day to day life of a DBA necessitates.
It isn't that a degree is mutually exclusive with the DBA's skill set, it's that the degrees being spoken about are still a subset of the needs of a DBA's day to day existence.
Peter Edmunds ex-Geek
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I don’t have a degree, just A-Levels. Always intended to go back into education and go to Uni, but got a job I liked and never did.
Did the same as a lot of folks on here, worked on helpdesk, testing, BA etc then moved into development and then eventually as a DBA.
I see a lot of my school peers 10 years on that I now work with, not as far on in their careers, still in debt, so I don't regret not doing a degree.
The most annoying thing is people who have a degree, who think because of that they are more entitled to a job or better money than those without. If they have better skills/work ethic etc then fine, but not a degree on it’s own.
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I have a Bachelor's Degree in CS, but I should add that I'd been working in IT for over 6 years when I completed the degree. I went back to school to further my IT career, not to start it.
With my own experience and talking to other folks, I've found that a technical degree, compSci or otherwise, does indeed help to get you started in the industry, and can help you advance since many places require a degree before they'll even consider you. Most of my fulltime work has been at small shops (<20 people) where degrees were not required. When I've hired people, I don't automatically disqualify anyone for lack of a degree, but, all other things being equal, the degreed individual has the edge.
No, you don't need a degree to get a tech job or advance your career, but it can only help you to have one.
Tim Mitchell, Microsoft Data Platform MVP
Data Warehouse and ETL Consultant
TimMitchell.net | @Tim_Mitchell | Tyleris.com
ETL Best Practices -
My, obviously hamstrung, interpretation of what Cherie was saying is that, regardless of the length of the list of bullet points, degrees are -more- used as employment and advancement filters than as bare metal training for what the day to day life of a DBA necessitates.
It isn't that a degree is mutually exclusive with the DBA's skill set, it's that the degrees being spoken about are still a subset of the needs of a DBA's day to day existence
Here in the US CS degree is not available to most women, I remember calling a CS dean for permission to take PL/SQL and was told to run along to do what women do because he gave me C++ hours prerequisites that most CS graduate programs don't require. I was not expecting zero C++ hours as prerequisites but not 18 to 24 hours of C++. I found the US Government copy of ANSI SQL 89 online pre Google and found most of the stuff was easy.
In .NET training something similar happened Microsoft had to fire the .NET evangelist in Houston before I started getting invitations for training. He was inviting only white men when the slots are filled then he sends a second invitation to women and minorities so there is no slot to attend the classes. The evals shows VB6 users and not the C++ and Java users Microsoft wanted to convert to .NET, the new person started and everything changed. This is a brain business that is converted to men business. I don't think colleges are to the point of running only computer based tests in imperative or functional languages so I am not interested. The US dirty secret is women are very few in software development, code review and deployment, that is everything related to creating software.
I take Microsoft exams it is me and the machine which does not care my sex or race.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming
😉
:Whistling:
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Gift Peddie (5/15/2009)
[...] was told to run along to do what women do [...]Ouch.
The imperative programming wiki was interesting reading.
Peter Edmunds ex-Geek
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Gift Peddie (5/15/2009)
My, obviously hamstrung, interpretation of what Cherie was saying is that, regardless of the length of the list of bullet points, degrees are -more- used as employment and advancement filters than as bare metal training for what the day to day life of a DBA necessitates.
It isn't that a degree is mutually exclusive with the DBA's skill set, it's that the degrees being spoken about are still a subset of the needs of a DBA's day to day existence
Here in the US CS degree is not available to most women, I remember calling a CS dean for permission to take PL/SQL and was told to run along to do what women do because he gave me C++ hours prerequisites that most CS graduate programs don't require. I was not expecting zero C++ hours as prerequisites but not 18 to 24 hours of C++. I found the US Government copy of ANSI SQL 89 online pre Google and found most of the stuff was easy.
In .NET training something similar happened Microsoft had to fire the .NET evangelist in Houston before I started getting invitations for training. He was inviting only white men when the slots are filled then he sends a second invitation to women and minorities so there is no slot to attend the classes. The evals shows VB6 users and not the C++ and Java users Microsoft wanted to convert to .NET, the new person started and everything changed. This is a brain business that is converted to men business. I don't think colleges are to the point of running only computer based tests in imperative or functional languages so I am not interested. The US dirty secret is women are very few in software development, code review and deployment, that is everything related to creating software.
I take Microsoft exams it is me and the machine which does not care my sex or race.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming
😉
:Whistling:
I will admit when I first read this I was offended. I felt that I was being lumped in with a few bad apples. While I was in college earning my degrees in the '80s there were quite a few women in the CS programs. This is not to discount what happened to you, but I think you may have just run into a few of the bad apples out there. Most of the people I have worked with over the years are much like myself.
When I am in a position to influence the hiring process (I don't actually do it yet) I look at the whole person, which means technical skills as well as the soft skills. Will this person fit in with the group. Race, sex, age, etc, don't matter.
I would hope that things are changing and I would encourage more women and minorities to enter the IT field. The diversity would be of great benefit to all.
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I would hope that things are changing and I would encourage more women and minorities to enter the IT field. The diversity would be of great benefit to all
In the forth largest city in the US Houston two women finished the C# .NET training which lasted a year so you have to walk in my shoes to understand my anger. A woman of Chinese decent and I so am not hopeful of changes.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
TO: Gift Peddie
I understand you had some bad experiences, but believe me when I say they are the exception rather than the rule.
I have been in the IT business for over 40 years (I won't say how much over, but when I started, programmers were Gods!)
My experience has been that IT is one of the few fields where women have faced very few barriers. I have always worked with women techies, many of whom were a lot better than me at the time. Maybe I have just been fortunate, but my corporate employment and consulting career has been primarily in Fortune 500 companies. I worked in the US, Europe, Canada and South America, and my experiences were similar. If any manager in the shops I've worked in tried to pull the treatment you complain of, they would have been quickly shown the door. As an upper middle-management employee, I supervised a lot of people over the years and it was rare to have to council one of my juniors to correct a sexist attitude. Only two times did I have to terminate someone who just wouldn't get with the program.
The university prof who tried to enforce extra prereqs should have been sued into the breadline.
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So maybe it is the Microsoft platform that is excluding women in development, software design and coding. I don't think so Microsoft do more to help all people who wants to write code. There are many women in testing that is QA that is not software development. There are many women in project management which is not related to system design and implementation. In actual coding it is very hard to find women.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Gift Peddie (5/15/2009)
I would hope that things are changing and I would encourage more women and minorities to enter the IT field. The diversity would be of great benefit to all
In the forth largest city in the US Houston two women finished the C# .NET training which lasted a year so you have to walk in my shoes to understand my anger. A woman of Chinese decent and I so am not hopeful fo changes.
I am not discounting what has happened to you or any others. If you recall, I said at first. I realize that discrimination occurs, but I have seen little of it in my career in IT. That is why I think you ran into the exceptions rather than the rule.
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So humor me how many C++, C#, Java, T-SQL and PL/SQL DBA level female developers you currently work with? In Java I mean JDK not Websphere because Sharepoint development is modifying existing code it is not related to software development.
I also would like to see Sun and Microsoft data on Java and C# certified women, I can say even with a court order both companies will fight to keep that information private.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Lynn Pettis (5/15/2009)
[...] That is why I think you ran into the exceptions rather than the rule. [...]The logical and unassailable alternative, is that you've run into the exceptions rather than the rule there Lynn.
Peter Edmunds ex-Geek
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Gift Peddie (5/15/2009)
[...] Sharepoint development is modifying existing code it is not related to software development. [...]😎
Peter Edmunds ex-Geek
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Gift Peddie (5/15/2009)
So humor me how many C++, C#, Java, T-SQL and PL/SQL DBA level female developers you currently work with? In Java I mean JDK not Websphere because Sharepoint development is modifying existing code it is not related to software development.I also would like to see Sun and Microsoft data on Java and C# certified women, I can say even with a court order both companies will fight to keep that information private.
Immaterial. I have worked in both large and small organizations and the general make-up of the organizations have been largely equal. As I said, I haven't seen the discrimination you have seen. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, it does. I have even seen it where the men have been discriminated against. Sorry I got fired from a job when someone else wouldn't (or couldn't) hold up her end of things and even received a bonus for the work I actually did prior to being terminated.
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