While widely successful today, the 29-year-old faced plenty of hardships to get to where he is.
"There were times where I felt pretty lost. I was frustrated that I couldn’t show work experience on my resume because I just wasn’t given a chance," explained Antiquiera.
As a first-generation American, he knew he couldn't give up on his dreams and felt a sense of pride to support his parents, brother, and his family in the Philippines. "Their life was difficult but they never showed it. As an adult, I see how my parents struggled and they didn’t want me to struggle in the same way."
After finding himself on academic probation at San Diego State University, Antiquiera enrolled at Southwestern College and to his surprise excelled academically. He transferred to CSU Northridge (CSUN) to achieve a bachelor of arts in sociology.
After graduating from CSUN in 2019, he moved back to San Diego eager to find an IT career. "My applications were denied during Covid. I applied to countless government agencies and was faced with many 'no's', rejection, and one yes but I failed to move onward because I didn’t have any real-world experience," he said. "I had to pivot, I started to look deeper into the jobs I wanted to see what the qualifications were and where to gain those skills."
Finally Antiquiera found a break through the College of Continuing Education and CyberHire. Nestled in Kearny Mesa inside the college's North City Campus, students are earning certificates in Desktop Technician (includes A+ and N+), Security Essentials, Cybersecurity Analyst, Windows System Administration, Linux Server Administration, Web Server Technologies and Applications, Network Technician (Cisco), Cloud Solutions AWS-Associate, and Virtual Datacenter at no-cost to them.
"I was so excited, it felt unreal that the college provided a completely free pathway to work with the city, had government ties, and offered certification waivers. It literally had everything I was looking for," said Antiquiera. "The way my professor broke down the course into concepts, made it accessible for people like me to learn complex strategies. Within weeks, I was repairing computers, learning hardware fundamentals, networking and IT basics."
After completing a desktop technician certificate and a CyberHire internship, Antiquiera was offered an internship with Dispatch Tech, a top IT solutions firm, where he now works as the Chief Information Security Officer and helps students like him gain hands-on IT practice. "Everyone should be able to do something they want to do. But you can't do it, if you can"t see yourself achieving it. I show them exactly what to do to break into a field that has a low probability of making it."
This summer, Antiquiera will be testing to become one of only 200 people in the world to be named a certified cybersecurity assessor with the U.S. Department of Defense.
Enrollment for the fall semester is now open at the College of Continuing Education and classes begin on September 3rd. For those unsure of where to start, the college offers a free IT self-assessment test to help identify one’s skill level and interests to inform the right IT certificate program.