• DBA is different from SQL Developer and I think being a developer, industrial experience is very important. I used to work with people coming out of college without any industrial experience vs people have years of industrial experiences, it is day and night. The trend of thought is totally different and it affects the way you design the system, how to work with the customers and how to implement the system. As for DBA it is nice to have industrial experiences too, it really makes a difference when you work with other departments and developers. You look at things at all different angles vs one angle.

    my 2 cents