I'm so frustrated. Why? Five years ago I left college midstream because of a great opportunity designing and implementing web sites for Ikonic Interactive. Now I've returned to finish my degree, and I'm paying a price for it.

In the four years after leaving Berkeley, I architected, built, and lead development of three online stores from the discovery phase to maintenance hand-off (Levi's Canada, Levi's USA, and Petstore.com). At the same time I learned user interface development, heuristic evaluation, and information architecture skills from some of the brightest in the business.

Somewhere along the way I decided that my career was doing so well that I was unlikely to ever go back to school to finish my degree unless I did it as soon as possible, so I left my career and came back to Berkeley to finish up my cognitive science bachelors degree and either continue my career interrupted, or get a masters degree in HCI and do the same.

So now I've been back at Berkeley for a year, and will be graduating inthe Spring, and I'm starting to look at career opportunities at the same time as I'm applying to grad school, giving me a little more time to make my decision. One of the companies I view most favorably for employment is Quidnunc. An old coworker of mine is in their New York office, I saw their recruiting pitch on campus, and I went down there to talk to their head of interface design. All in all it seems to be a great place, and I kept in touch with their recruiter to set up interviews around February or so, for employment in June.

Talking to her yesterday, I found out that they see me as coming in at the lowest level (minus a 6 month 'trainee' phase most entry personnel have). As I had feared (though never given real weight to), having gone back to college, I'm now seen as a 'recent graduate' instead of a person with 5 years of top-flight interactive development experience who should be interviewing for senior architect positions.

The funny part is that if I had finished my degree 4 years ago and then proceeded to get the experience I have now, I would be a great fit for one of their level II or level III positions, but going back to school equates to taking two steps backwards. To further the irony, the education I've received over the last year in user interface design, usability, information management, and visual perception didn't even exist at Berkeley when I left, so the education I would have received 4 years ago wouldn't have been as valuable as what I have now.

Now I'm stuck playing the game I avoided so well before: having my value as a potential employee measured by the letters after my name and not the real-world experience I've picked up. Now I'm being told that my best course of action is to get a masters degree because they're looking for masters degrees right now more than bachelors degrees, but if I were applying straight from the industry looking to jump ladders, the degree that I have or didn't have would be of secondary importance to my immediate work experience and capabilities.

Of course, this is just one experience with one company but it's still very discouraging. I suppose when I apply for positions (should I choose not to go to grad school next Fall), I'll put my degree on my resume, but omit the dates to get away from being pidgeonholed as a 'recent graduate' and all the immaturity and entry-level-ness that it entails.