user01, I can only try to feel for how you feel about BAs, if you are a Developer or Systems Analyst. I was working in a gas station for a long time before I went to a NJ **desi** recruiting company and took a training and got a BA job. After working for one year, I remember I used to feel puffed up and also feel that I was experienced enough as a BA/QA. It was easy to nail interviews and get jobs. After working for more than 5 years now, in somehow different clients and slight variations of developmental and infrastructure related projects, although I have confidence in the type of roles (BA) that I can work; but I have no confidence if I can create something of value. I, and most of friends, that I know of, have either worked in Financial / Insurance companies where most of the Fortune 10 clients have no problem with project funding even-though they are mired in SDLC bottlenecks and bureaucracies. I feel, in such industry, the BA role is a perfect mesh of knowing the firm (and obviously their systems). Which any reasonable person can learn. Today, the work that I do, I feel, is not really necessary for my company. But they have kept me. Not only that, they have kept me busy doing things that no company, say in Nepal or India, would do. Helps to pay my bills. But I also understand the threat to my job security and that any college student in Kathmandu or Visakhapatnam can easily do the job that I am doing now. I understand, if not for Bernie or Trump, my skills and values to the firm are swiftly and cheaply replaceable. For now, I am hanging in there. Waiting to become one of those manual labor stories from rust belt.