Your job hunt and integration into the organisation can go much more smoothly if you study DevOps in a classroom and work in a company with similar techniques and culture.
Academic institutions are the birthplace of a lot of scientific research and discoveries. Scientific research is undergoing a revolution thanks to DevOps, which is also changing how it is conducted and published.
One of the essential things that your future employer would like to consider is what you did while you were a student, apart from sitting through the curriculum.