[quote=flu]
Statistically, there are more people who have college degrees that have that experience than people who do not. BUT, i can say a PHD in MechE applying for a DBA position with no experience will be S.O.L. And a company that has a data center will not hire that person to man their infrastructure and commit suicide on their mission critical business operations, because running the business poorly affects the bottom line.
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Your are comparing apples and oranges. Comparing an IT engineer to a ‘real’ engineer is like saying a mechanic or custodian is the peer of a rocket scientist.

And remember, I’m an IT engineer.

Truth be told, I really doubt you can find a single practicing engineer in one of the ‘hard’ disciplines that doesn’t have a formal education. Most IT is like trade work and programming, especially for user applications, is as much a creative and artistic endeavor as it is an engineering discipline.

Real ‘engineering’ is like brain surgery. No amateurs allowed. Would you trust a dropout to design a bridge or a jet engine?

However; I’ll comment that mechanics and custodians have better survival characteristics than rocket scientists during severe economic recessions. Businesses and governments will be more interested in maintaining existing systems vs. developing new ones.