Changing Careers: Certifications or Degree More Valuable?

I am looking to change careers and move into the IT field. My goal at the moment is to be a DBA, but I realize that any goal will be refined as my career progresses.

My main question is which is more important: an IT degree or IT certs?

I have both a BS and MS in civil engineering and have only been out of school for about 6 years.

So what are your opinions? Will an engineering degree plus certs be enough to get in the door (maybe slightly past the door) or will I need to be able to check the box that says "CS/IT degree"?

Thanks,

Hazzey

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Comments

erpadmin

Ummmm.....

Based on your educational background, I would say, for sure, get certs. There are people with basketweaving degrees that can get a DBA job. In my case, I'm a college dropout that is a DBA. (After a few months, that will change.)

If you do want to go back to school, I would get a MS in CIS. You'll get a lot of exposure to relational database theory and since you, for sure, have a math background, it probably wouldn't take you that long to obtain that second Masters. I wouldn't waste my time (with your background) on a second BS.

In the meantime, have you looked for Junior Admin positions in your area? Do you have any IT experience at all? I can't see someone with an engineering background having problems getting at a minimum a help desk gig. Yeah, it's not as sexy as a DBA gig, for sure, but you get your foot in the door of IT. Do you have programming experience?

hazzey

I'll add some more detail that I left out of my original post for brevity.

I don't have any professional IT experience, but I have been running my own linux web/mail/file servers for 10+ years. I understand servers and the command line doesn't intimidate me.

I actually started my college career in computer engineering, but I decided that circuits weren't for me. In retrospect, I probably should have switched to CS/MIS.

I am thinking that I may get the three CompTIA entry level certs (A+ N+ S+ and Project+ would apply to my current job as well) just to get them out of the way. I keep up enough with the current state of things that these shouldn't take too much preparation. I figure that it would show that I am serious about the career switch even if the individual certs wouldn't apply directly.

erpadmin

hazzey wrote: »

I'll add some more detail that I left out of my original post for brevity.

I don't have any professional IT experience, but I have been running my own linux web/mail/file servers for 10+ years. I understand servers and the command line doesn't intimidate me.

I actually started my college career in computer engineering, but I decided that circuits weren't for me. In retrospect, I probably should have switched to CS/MIS.

I am thinking that I may get the three CompTIA entry level certs (A+ N+ S+ and Project+ would apply to my current job as well) just to get them out of the way. I keep up enough with the current state of things that these shouldn't take too much preparation. I figure that it would show that I am serious about the career switch even if the individual certs wouldn't apply directly.

Do that!

Actually, I'd probably forgo A+ and N+ and instead get Linux+. Of course, you could always get the entire set, but Linux+ might actually be what you need since you can probably get a nice *Nix job with your background.

If I could read the Sybex PK0-003 guide one time and get a 794, you could definitely do the same and probably get a near perfect score. It only took me around 10 days. (Mind you, I already had PM [methodology] experience...but I think you'd be able to swing that.)

bigmantenor

I would have to agree on not doing A+/Network+, at least for you. Your $$$ and time is better invested in other studies/certs.

nhpr

Depending on how much you know about Linux, you might want to go for RHCSA/RHCE as those are much more comprehensive than Linux+. Those are rather expensive certs though (and have a bad renewal policy), so do your research before signing up for them.