As far as certifications go I learned a long time ago they are usually worthless. All they prove is that the person can read a book and then test well on the limited scenarios provided by the book. And those programs tend to come from a place of "this is how it should be in an ideal situation" which just isn't the case 99% of the time. Every company is unique with their own culture, knowledge-level, and budget to consider and these factors often add up to a less than ideal reality.
Talking to people from all walks, I know a lot of SMBs that refuse to higher certified people if all they have is the certification. It's not the learning curve, it's the ego that tends to accompany such programs. There seems to be a feeling of "I'm certified and know what I'm doing" which translates to "unteachable". Many SMBs have found it's better to just grab someone fresh with a passion to learn than deal with those headaches
because I don't care what your silly book told you, this is how we do it here.
I think a degreed program would be an entirely different scenario but the issue of classification comes up. I don't think we're really engineers. I don't think we're even computer tech people. We're marketing people that happen to use tech. But there's a big design part of the equasion as well.
SEO is a great field for schiztophrenics.
You need to have great communication skills, the ability to think of and create content (both written and programmed), project management skills are essential, graphic/web design skills, promotion, advertising, marketing, accounting (for the budget and PPC) and know how to operate a computer.
I think if we looked at how
varied our backgrounds are it would be revealing.