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Nicholas Marks
New skills open up a world of new opportunities for adult education student
October 31, 2022
Nicholas Marks
School: LAUSD Adult Education, Venice Skills Center
Adult Education
Nicholas Marks graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a Minor in Music. After graduating from UC Santa Barbara, he began working at a computer security startup called Lastline Inc. as a Logistics Engineer. He also co-founded a band called The Oles with whom he recorded two albums, performed three to five shows a month, and eventually planned a three-week tour through seven states. Unfortunately, Nicholas was let go from his job and also had to move out of his apartment due to flooding. The housing market in Santa Barbara was unsustainable, so he had no choice but to relocate back to Los Angeles where he grew up. During this period of unemployment, he was introduced to the Venice Skills Center and received an education grant to continue pursuing educational goals in the form of certifications. Transitioning from a startup culture into the corporate world proved to require a certificate to qualify for employment.
Nicholas joined the Venice Skills Center in October 2019. He began studying for Cisco certifications in Networking, CyberOps, and Security+ courses. Four months after joining the Venice Skills Center and two weeks into his CompTia courses, the world shut down due to COVID-19. At this point, all classes moved from in-person to remote and finding a job seemed almost impossible. But because of experience with the Venice Skills Center, Nicholas discovered organizations like SANS, and dove headfirst into cybersecurity. He is now a regular guest lecturer and works to mentor his classmates, share news regarding information security and career development.
Shortly after Nicholas began his studies at Venice Skills Center, he accepted a position as an instructional aide at Estrella Elementary School in LAUSD, supporting the campus with IT, distribution and record-keeping of student devices. After a few months, he transitioned to the district IT department as a Support Technician, serving eight campuses with over 500 students and 20 to 100 faculty members at each location. He participated in the National Cyber League competition by CyberSkyLine for the past two years and has placed in the top 3 percent of competitors for three seasons. Nicholas also competed in the SkillsUSA competition for Internetworking, and in 2021 placed gold in the local and state competitions and bronze in the national competition. Recently, Nicholas was invited to join the Venice Skills Center campus as a substitute teacher and is in the process of obtaining Career Technical Education credentials. He looks forward to joining the facility to provide additional resources and classes in programming, network security and automation.
Although Nicholas enjoyed his time working with LAUSD, he decided to explore work in the private sector to apply his knowledge and have more responsibility for critical infrastructure. He's currently accepting a position with a small IT team to support a national law firm. In addition, Nicholas provides technical support and security education to friends and family, including supporting his girlfriend's organization, the Long Beach Chamber Music Group, as the webmaster and occasionally performing with the group on trumpet. During the quarantine, Nicholas assisted by recording educational videos to publish for her students; this was a helpful tool for the students to stay engaged in private lessons and classroom sessions. Together he and his girlfriend also created a YouTube channel to post quarantine performances where Nicholas served as the recording engineer and video editor.