SAHM considering database administration

I am a 36 year old stay at home mom, with eight years paid work experience working with Oracle databases at the user level and analyzing data, and bachelors degrees in economics and mathematics.

I am considering re-entering the workforce as a database administrator. Before I invest time and money retraining and gaining experience, I want to be confident that I will have made a sound decision.

Before I move forward, I would like to know the answers to these 9 questions:

1. How many hours on average each week does a dba work?
2. Am I too old to start in this career?
3. Should employment prospects be good in the next 15 years?
4. Is there ageism in this profession?
5. How long will it be before I start earning at least $38K a year?
6. How does one gain entry into this career?
7. What kind of people excel in this career?
8. What is the career path?
9. Are jobs only plentiful in big cities?

If you are a practicing database administrator, would you mind briefly responding to some or all of these questions? I would be grateful. Received on Fri Aug 12 2005 - 15:13:48 CDT