" I also have a masters degree in statistics from a big 10 university" , ok, you are too far out from my league.. hehe... i do have masters too but from a chepo university to maintain status. well as long as self learning goes, i did spend a year on sql and oracle. and almost a year on java and .net ( c#) , don't know where to go after this. they never look for junior level, if somehow they did, it's for internship for sophomores and juniors...