effekted wrote: » As others will recommend, go down the path that you're most interested in because the technology/IT field is going to constantly push you to learn new technology, and master your choice of focus in order to truly succeed and continuously advance. If your passion is databases, you will want to have a good understanding of basic networking so a CCENT or even Network+ would help you understand how data flows throughout the network/how it reaches your databases. You also want to have a really strong server understanding since that will be what your databases will reside on. Will also be invaluable with troubleshooting when issues arise that aren't actually within the database so to say. If you are going MS SQL Server than you'll want to know Windows Server, if you will be doing Oracle than you'll want to know Solaris, and then there are various flavors that reside on *NIX boxes so you'll want to know them. Knowing all of them well will create an endless amount of opportunities at your disposal but starting out try and focus primarily on 1 of the 3 to get you that DBA position and then expand from there. DBA's IMO are similar to Info Sec positions (a company generally isn't going to let someone with 0 experience come in and mnage their databases) although there are more entry level roles for DBA's than Info Sec, you'll likely start out in a System Administration position that will include managing a server that have databases on them. GL with which ever path you take and remember to do the one you are passionate about instead of just salary figures.
