Career Roadmap
Mark's work combines: Technology, Engineering, and Teaching / Mentoring
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Industrial Engineering
University of Illinois at Chicago
Bachelor's Degree
Computer Science
University of Illinois at Chicago
Here's the path I recommend for someone who wants to be a Coder School General Manager:
Bachelor's Degree: Computer Software Engineering
Learn more about different paths to this career
Life & Career Milestones
I've taken a lot of twists and turns
1.
As a 4 year old I wanted to reconstruct a toy just by looking at it. Eventually my parents allowed me to destroy the $30 toy at that time. And I was able to rebuild it, which amazed everyone.
2.
Early in my career, I joined a vocal assembly group and was a web communicator for their website. I worked with this singular website for over 22 years.
3.
In 2009 I had surgery for cancer. I was able to get better just after a few months. Now the cancer is very low, which I'm thankful for.
4.
In 2015 I started studying for a private pilot license. In May, I was able to fly my first plane. It was an incredible feeling. Although I still needed to study more, I was on my way.
5.
When I graduated college, I had a double major and I was able to obtain two degrees—one for industrial engineering and another one for computer science.
6.
Throughout my life, I have had many jobs and all of them had something to do with computers. It took me a while to find a job that I would work on for the rest of my career.
7.
Once finding the coder school after retiring, I continued working at this job. I'm happy with my job, and to this day I still work at this job.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Family:
You need to earn tons of money from your career.
How I responded:
During the beginning of my career I was earning a lot of money, which allowed me to have a stable lifestyle. Yet, I didn’t feel happy doing this. I had too much work to do every single day. However, I tried to push forward knowing that complaining won’t solve anything. After many years I learned that happiness is just as important as money. If you are constantly feeling unhappy with what you do, then something needs to change, which was what I did and eventually found the coder school.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
I overcame this obstacle by learning that happiness is important if you want to earn money. Money is good to have. However, if you aren’t happy doing it, then find something else that will make you happy, even if doesn’t earn as much money.