I agree with dmarian's approach...

I started working with a software company with absolutely no exspirience at all in the IT industry... I started as a graphic design artist... then moved up to a web master... designing their entire website by myself... then I used cgi and learned some unix/linux... along with HTML and FLASH... then moved up to some sql and some programming... learning Delphi and a little Oracle... and now I am prepairing for OCP and in product development...

it's the whole theory of janitor turn president...

The best exspirience, I feel, is not starting as a DBA at all... in fact if you are going to remain with a company it's one of the worst places to start... yes you start at a nice salery... but you don'ot know much about the company and it's needs and infrustructor... and your are expected, right away... to improve the company's growth and increase productivity...

a lot is expected... if you start at the bottom though... you can work your way up... you gain more respect from your co-workers and it's much easier to negotiate your salary... when you finally do take on OCP and DBA stuff... plus you have all sorts of other exspirience you can put on your resume...

if you don't need a hell of a lot of money right away... I reccomend starting from the bottom... if so... then it's sink or swim...