Digital Discoveries: A Journey of Involvement and Leadership

Host Dave Magolis sits down with Nick on the Campus and Character podcast to discuss why he chose Commonwealth University–Bloomsburg—citing its distance from his hometown of Clarks Summit, affordability, and the moment he discovered his major after hearing Dr. Inch speak on digital forensics and cybersecurity. Nick outlines the program’s strong forensics emphasis, warns against overreliance on “push-button forensics,” and explains how digital evidence work often intersects with law enforcement, including the mental-health challenges that can come with exposure to disturbing material.

He also highlights his campus involvement, serving as secretary of the Digital Forensics/Bloomsburg Cyber Defense Club, helping build a server room for hands-on enterprise experience, and leading activities like analyzing a Nintendo console’s storage. Beyond tech, Nick is pursuing minors in music and music technology, performs in vocal ensembles and the Take Note a cappella group, and contributes to the radio club. For his honors capstone, he plans to produce a radio show focused on improving tech literacy.

Transcript

Nick Part 1

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, friends. You're listening to another episode of the Campus and Character Podcast where we explore leadership stories to inspire growth and connect leaders. I'm your host, Dave McGollis, and I'm here with my special guest, Nick. Hello. How's it going, Nick? I'm okay. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Nick. How did you get to Bloomsburg?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

So Bloomsburg was one of my top choices when I was looking at colleges, and it was for three reasons. It was distance, affordability, and then also my program, my major. Yes. So as far as distance goes, I'm about an hour and 15 minutes away from home. Which is perfect. Where's Helmut? My home is in Clark Summit, Clark Summit, which is just north of Scranton. It's very suburban. Yeah. And so I think Bloom is the perfect distance where it's like I'm not really at home where my family's not like involved daily, but it's also close enough where if I actually do need something that I can go home and I'm still I can still be connected on weekends pretty easily and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

That's right. That's nice. You don't have to get on a plane and fly home.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, no, nothing like that. Even there there have been times where there was like an emergency and I could be home even on a weekday and come back.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

So tell us a little bit about this major. That was one of your trifecta things here. So we have distance, we understand that distance. Now what about your major?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

So my major's an interesting story. When I was looking at colleges, I was planning on going either undecided or doing creative writing because I really liked that. Now, here they had a junior day where part of that junior day was looking through all of it. They had this fair for all of the majors where they would basically give their spiel. And so we we went and and saw the English professor give his spiel, and I was like, okay, you know. Hart really wasn't super in it already. And then I overheard one of the digital forensics and cybersecurity professors here, Dr. Inch, giving a talk. Yes. Basically giving his spiel, which he has practiced numerous times. He's got his done it once or twice. Yeah, he's and he has his whole PowerPoint that gets people in, and it totally it totally got me.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

What an awesome field.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

It absolutely is. So tell us about the field. What's the field? So my field is digital forensics and cybersecurity. This major here was started around 20 years ago, and we are pretty unique in the country for being so focused on forensics. So basically, just what you think of when you hear forensics but applied exclusively to digital evidence because technology is so so ingrained in our lives now. Anytime some crime is committed, there's always technology involved.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Almost always. And we everyone's carrying around this little device in their pocket, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And when we have our technology made so convenient for us, most people don't know what's going on in the back end. And so one of the really things that's unique about our major, and and Dr. Inch talks about this too, something that I hear all the time in conferences as well is this term push-button forensics. Explain that to us. Basically, we have all of these really great tools for forensics where it'll analyze the hard drive for you, it'll categorize the evidence really conveniently for you, and that's a wonderful thing. But what you get is a lot of forensic analysts who only know how to use the tool. They don't know how it actually works, they don't know how to check what the tool might have missed, which is extremely common. And so in law enforcement, what you see a lot is because obviously every police department can't afford to or doesn't have like a forensic analyst on lock for every single case. So the burden of dealing with digital evidence often is placed on basically cops who don't know the back end of everything. Who so yeah, our college is really unique in that the first thing we are taught is the really grubby stuff of how to just look at literally the raw hex code in how data is.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

So are you partnering with cops? Is that what you're telling us? Is that is that what you're doing this?

SPEAKER_01 4:39

In forensics, that's often how this field manifests. Yeah, there is a lot of law enforcement, government type stuff. There is some more there are some more corporate opportunities that arise with forensics and like incident response and and cybercrime, but a lot of the crime stuff is is in forensics.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So do you plan on doing that in the future?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

You plan on getting into some type of law enforcement with this or it's interesting to me because the forensics part is definitely what I'm best at and what I most love doing. The thing is that it does scare me a little bit. Because you know, the truth of the matter is a lot of digital forensics cases where you're looking into someone's hard drive, a vast majority of that isn't going to be the exciting kidnapping or or murder cases. It is unfortunately going to be, hey, this per we have reason to believe that this person has some really heinous stuff on their computer, you need to go find it. And so while I I feel that a part of that is really rewarding, I do fear for my mental health, and it's something that I need to keep in mind. Absolutely. But I think that in the umbrella term, because cybersecurity is a whole can of worms as well, I think that forensics is where I'm probably most likely to wind up. But I've just made sure in my time here to have my my feelers in a lot of different areas.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Your feelers are all you're it they're all over the place because part of the reason why I have you on the show is because you do so much on campus. You're involved in a ton of different organizations. We're gonna talk about those organizations here. Can you tell us about the student organizations you're involved in?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Well, for a segue, I could talk about the digital forensics club. Absolutely. Which is is tied directly to my major, but one of the cool things as you start kind of progressing through your college career is you get to be in charge of some of the clubs. So I'm secretary for the DF Club, which is now called DF slash BCDC or Bloomsburg Cyber Defense Club. Now, one of the really neat projects that my buddies in the exec board have been working on is we actually have a server room in Ben Franklin now. We had a lot of support from the IT department who had a lot of hardware that they just weren't using and were willing to sort of give over, as well as stuff that we found in the community that we were able to buy. It's it's older stuff, but it's enterprise hardware, so it's really built to last. And we've gotten some really good success in getting it to work, and we're hoping that it can be a really good doorway for people into the cybersecurity side of things because working with servers, especially enterprise grade servers, isn't really something that you have space for in your academics. That's not something that you can really do in a hands-on way. Yeah, it doesn't lend itself to classrooms. So we're gonna be able to provide an opportunity for people to. I mean, right now already we've given an opportunity to see what it's like to set up and administer a server. Yeah, that's cool. Which on any resume for an undergrad is nuts. But also in the future, people will be able to work on managing it and securing it even. So it's gonna be such a great source of experience for people. And we also just do a lot of fun stuff. We kind of ask the members every week what they want to do if they want to do something security or forensics related. One of the meetings last semester that was my favorite is one that I sort of organized, is where I found out how to get the internal storage of a Nintendo console into a way that was viewable and that we could search through. Oh, that's cool. People really liked that one. Yeah, because when you have a device that's so obscure that you don't expect people to break into it, you have really bad security measures. Like your Wi-Fi passwords, they're stored in plain text. There's no protection. If you know where to find them, they're just there. So it's really interesting to see that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

So you're involved in the digital forensics club. Anything else? What else are you involved in?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Music stuff that I'm involved in. So in addition to my major digital forensics, I have two miners, which are music and music tech, which I've made work pretty well because the required courses of one count as the electives for the other.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Oh, that's cool. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Good planning. It's basically two miners for the price of one.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And so in in music, I'm mainly involved in vocal ensembles. So and I'm on exec words for for each of these as well, but mainly it's just kind of organizing like our events throughout campus and and helping with that. They're not as clubbish because a lot of times for like concert choir, for instance, it is a class for credit. But yeah, I still did choir all throughout middle and high school, so when I got to college, it was kind of a no-brainer to get involved in that. My favorite that I'm involved in is our student run a cappella group, which is called Take Note. It was kind of an offshoot by a bunch of choir kids. We used to have an a cappella group here and it kind of fizzled out once people graduated, which is uh in a bunch of the clubs that I'm in, we've started to put forth contingency plans for if that happens. That's good. Where it's something that that we've experienced sometimes is where if you have really good leadership in a club, and then those people graduate, a lot of the people left behind are wondering, like, how do I do this? We're starting to put together like documents and stuff for for even the DF club that's like how to do this club, how to run it when we're gone.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

That's two three different things you're involved. Well, anything else that you you're I mean, you're doing so much.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, I am involved in this room a lot because I am in the radio club.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Being in the radio studio, yeah, that's where we are.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Every two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yeah, yeah. It's nice to see you.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah, and I'm hoping to get a new radio show kind of started.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Nice. What's gonna be about? Can you give us some insight?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

So as a member of the Honors College, yeah, we have to do a capstone project, and they I think strongly, strongly encourage that it's related to your major. Yep. And so I was gonna use or I was thinking of using this platform as a way to educate people about technology. Absolutely. Because we definitely have I mean, we have a literacy crisis literally, but I think we also have a tech literacy crisis happening. We do where the stuff in our pocket is so convenient that we really just don't know how it's working, and that can can be and is exploited every day.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Absolutely. Well, let's take a quick break. We're gonna come back and pick that apart a little bit. I want to know about your show that you're thinking about, give us some insight on that, that'll be some breaking news from Nick here today. So stick with us. This is the Campus in Character Podcast. We'll be right

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SPEAKER_00 12:03

back. Are you looking for a smart way to reach an engaged, media-savvy audience? Become a partner of the Campus in Character Podcast by sponsoring the show. Our listeners include students, faculty, alumni, and industry professionals who care about our campus, our student leaders, and the character that drives all of us. When you partner with us, your message is delivered in a trusted, authentic environment, not lost in the noise. Support the next generation of student leaders while growing your brand. Find out how to partner with us at campus in characterpodcast at gmail.com. That's campusandcharacterpodcast at gmail.com. And let's encourage the next generation of leaders.

Nick Part 2

SPEAKER_00 12:41

This is the Campus in Character Podcast, and I'm here with Nick. We're talking a lot about his experiences on campus, all the different things that he's involved in. He's telling us a little bit about his honors capstone project, and he's thinking about using his platform in the radio club, NBHSK Radio Club, with his platform in Digital Forensics and his platform in the Honors College to come up with a potential show. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, so unfortunately, I don't have a catchy title yet. Okay, this might that might be the last step, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

That happens, that happens.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

But yeah, I I'm one thing I'm seeing is that a lot of people are getting into really unsafe positions in their lives because they just don't understand the technology that's in their life. And I think a radio show would be a great platform for kind of getting people to hear it, even if they're not in that sphere, they can just kind of pick up a few passing phrases and a few minutes of discussion that will kind of help them.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, and then we can turn that into a podcast too. Oh, of course. Yeah, and share it all over the world. Great. Well, we have the opportunity for you to get on air, so we'll find some time for you. Don't worry about the name of that though. We'll figure out the name. So you're involved in all these different clubs.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

And so we would consider you a leader on campus because you're a leader on the executive staff, the radio club. What are some of the biggest challenges you see campus leaders such as yourself like kind of facing today?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I think that public outreach is a really big one. That's part of why in a lot of the clubs I'm in, I kind of gravitate towards like the secretarial PR officer roles. Is because something that I experienced as a new student here is that even though this campus in general does a really great job of getting students involved with clubs, it's it's one of the first things that they often see is that they're kind of thrust into a room with all of the student involvement stuff. But that's a lot to take in. The only reason I know about the radio club or even about BUSN, our streaming network, where I now work as a student worker, that's just because my former roommate who's known in here as DJ Woodster, he told me about them. So a lot of times it is kind of a word-of-mouth thing that gets relied upon for club involvement because certain groups or certain things just slip through the cracks during the enrollment process. And that's something that I would definitely like to quell by even throughout the year, kind of making people just a little bit more aware of the groups that I'm in and that they are are more than welcome and because everyone's welcome.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

And it's good to even publicize some of that stuff on the radio. We can get you a commercial, you can put a commercial out there and tell everyone about the different events that are happening on campus. So is there anyone that you can point to in your life who's kind of inspired you to do all these things that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

My mother, for sure. She throughout my life has been a big proponent of like education is more or less your job until you have a job. I like that. And so that caused me to put a lot of stock in my college career, and that was a really great that it turned out wonderfully for me because I feel like I've broken out of my shell a lot. Yeah, I was not the most social until like the tail end of high school, and by that point I was already I had one foot out the door. Yeah. So when I got here, I really was was ready to become really, really involved in everything.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

If someone was gonna ask you, hey Nick, I'm a freshman in high school. Can you can you give some advice to that freshman in high school, or maybe a younger Nick, and what would you say to your younger self? Maybe you'd be a little more outgoing, maybe in high school. Is there something else you'd tell your younger self or see advice you could give someone else who's coming up?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

I absolutely would. I think the best advice that I would give anyone for anything is just to ask more questions. There is this aversion that we have when we're kids to asking for help. And it's not just asking for help, it's again asking for resources, asking about what's available to you. Because without that, you're kind of just in your own head and you make assumptions about the way that things are. That can be incorrect.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

So So why are we like that? Why don't we ask questions? I think that I love asking questions.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, it it's something that I struggle with because we are naturally curious as humans. Yeah. But I think there is a little bit of a a pride thing going on. We don't want to embarrass ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

So you're a tech guy, I got this question for you. Okay, digital forensics, know a lot about the tech world. Is it because we think we can find the answers to everything?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Do you think that's part of the problem? I feel like that could be it. That could be why we don't ask questions.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I think we do have a lot of personal bias against ourselves, and and there there's a refusal to admit that we're wrong. This is something that I mean related to tech a little bit, but social media has completely shot through the roof is just the echo chamberism and the I'm right. And in this issue, there is one right opinion and 99 wrong opinions. So I think that could contribute to it as well. Where we we really, really are afraid of imperfection and uncertainty. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Because someone's gonna call us out on social media or say something about us, and we don't want that to happen. We want everyone to think we're perfect and everything's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yeah, fear of the unknown. You know, the the worst thing, I think something that we fear even more than being told we're wrong, is that we don't know. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Because people expect you just you should just know. Yeah, it's amazing. I get that a lot, mainly because I'm a dad. My sons always ask me, Hey, do you know this, Dad? What is that? And I'm like, I I don't know everything, believe it or not, but we can research it. And so I encourage them to do some research when they don't know, or ask more questions, which is something that I really encourage my boys to do. Well, that's great advice, Nick. We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna be back with Nick. We're gonna ask him some rapid fire questions. You think he can handle those rapid fire questions? I hope so. All right, stay tuned. This is the Campus in Character Podcast. We'll be right

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SPEAKER_00 19:26

back. Are you looking for a smart way to reach an engaged, media savvy audience? Become a partner of the Campus in Character Podcast by sponsoring the show. Our listeners include students, faculty, alumni, and industry professionals who care about our campus, our student leaders, and the character that drives all of us. When you partner with us, your message is delivered in a trusted, authentic environment, not lost in the noise. Support the next generation of student leaders while growing your brand. Find out how to partner with us at campus and character podcast at gmail.com. That's campusandcharacterpodcast at gmail.com. And let's encourage the next generation of

Nick Part 3

SPEAKER_00 20:02

leaders. Welcome back to the Campus and Character Podcast. Today we've had some tours go through the radio studio. What do you think about that, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I think it's really great. I I think that if I was taken on a tour through here, I might have it I might have had a more difficult time choosing a program. Yeah, this is a beautiful studio. This is a really, really nice building.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Sure. It's it's we're really blessed to have it. So, Nick, we got some rapid fire questions for you. Are you ready? Oh, I don't know. All right, let's see what you can do here. What's one word to describe you? Caring. Caring. I can see that. You like to care about people and how they're using some of their technology, I know. Yeah. These devices they're walking around in their pockets. You're talking about hacking Wi-Fi passwords, Nick. I'm starting to feel a little unsafe around you at this point. All right. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

First thing we learn is integrity. That's good. Do no harm. That's good. Do no harm, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:51

What was the like your first interest in technology? Do you remember? Is there something? A game It was video games.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

It was probably my Nintendo DS that I had as a kid. What was your kid and that that I still have. You still play it like every day? No. Not every day. Not every day.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

What was your favorite game? What's your favorite game?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Oh, that's a really, really difficult one. But when I was a kid, it was definitely Pokemon.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

That's what got me into it.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Do you collect cards or you trade cards or anything?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

No, I was never really into the cards as much.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

So my son got into the cards for a little while, and that supposedly he had this really expensive card, and then the next thing I know, he just bent it and did. I was like, what? I thought that was an expensive card. I don't know anything about Pokemon cards.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

I know people go really, really feral about those cards.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah. It's amazing. It's a whole nother culture. We need a podcast on Pokemon cards. I'm you could probably do one. That's what we need.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Not me, but somebody else should be doing one for sure. So who inspires you? Is there anyone out there that inspires you? Anyone you'd like to be like someday? Or someone that you're just like, I could model my life after them.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Oh, geez. My girlfriend is. So much more honest and brave and I think strong willed than I am. And I really would like to. I mean, I I'm already learning so much from her. Does she have a name?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Can we give her a shout-out?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Her name's Kaziah, shout-out.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Kaziaya. I love her. Absolutely. Thank you for all that you're doing. This is great. Can you tell us what type of leadership style would you say you have?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

It's definitely a more chill and friendly style of leadership, I think.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Caring.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah, for sure. There's so I'm actually going to be an RA here next year. Are you really? And they have seven values that they talk about, and one of the interviewer application questions was like, which do you most care about? And or which which is most important to you? And I picked caring for mine.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

So I think that's probably what would manifest in how I treat my residents and and all the club members and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That's your one word to describe you. Caring. So we're going with Nick is caring. And he gives a shout-out to his girlfriend. The favorite place to eat in Bloomsburg. You have a favorite place?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Oh. I just love Commons because it's so it's all you can eat for a meal swipe, but so we've had this on the podcast before.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Commons comes up a lot. We understand why. Yeah. But what is your favorite thing at Commons? There's a lot there. There's a lot to choose from. It's probably hard to pick.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Once every week or two, a Commons burger hits really hard, I found. It's not an everyday thing. It's not a multiple times a week thing, but maybe like once a week on a Friday. Okay. I do love a Commons burger.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

And so what do you put on it? Any condiments or anything?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

So I'll put a slice of American cheese and then I'll put barbecue and ranch on it.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Barbecue and ranch? Yeah. That's a new combination for me. Don't think I've ever tried that.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, it's it tastes a lot like it it's very much like a backyard barbecue kind of feel that you get from that. The only thing that's missing, I think, from that is like some bacon. But you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

You can always put bacon on it. Yeah. I was always a very traditional ketchup guy. Throwing a little mustard a ma occasionally. I marry my wife. Now it's mayo. Who does that? Who does that? I don't know. Mayo on a hamburger? I don't know either. I feel like that's something that I shouldn't have kind of learned from her, but I did.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Those things just rub off. Mayo's a thing where, like, if it's on a burger when I get it, I'm like, okay, fine. But it's not something that I'll ever consciously choose to do.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Like you wouldn't choose to do that. My wife chooses to do that. So now I I I choose to do that too. All right. So well, Nick, hey, this has been a lot of fun. It was great getting to know you. I am inspired by your story, all the things you've been doing. Uh, and you still have some time here. It's not like you're graduating tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have one more year.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

So you have another year, RA. Things are looking bright for you. You have a bright future ahead. You have a great major. You're learning a lot and you're doing a lot on campus. We really appreciate it. If you like this show, this is the Campus in Character Podcast. Please rate and review us. Send it to all your friends, download it, share it, and we appreciate all that you're doing for the show. We'll see you next time.

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SPEAKER_00 25:02

Are you looking for a smart way to reach an engaged, media-savvy audience? Become a partner of the Campus in Character Podcast by sponsoring the show. Our listeners include students, faculty, alumni, and industry professionals who care about our campus, our student leaders, and the character that drives all of us. When you partner with us, your message is delivered in a trusted, authentic environment, not lost in the noise. Support the next generation of student leaders while growing your brand. Find out how to partner with us at campusandcharacterpodcast at gmail.com. That's campusandcharacterpodcast at gmail.com. And let's encourage the next generation of leaders.