Any advice on how to make ISK starting off? I've been playing for a few days and have been just doing agency missions, but I'm still stuck on level 1 cause my standing just isn't increasing with my faction for some reason? Only sometimes, and only very slowly?
You're worried about the wrong thing.
At its core, EVE is not a PvE game, and the PvE content always was and always will be boring. There are some people so dull that they enjoy EVE's PvE—but you're not one of them, or else you wouldn't be here asking these questions. The correct thing for you to do is head out to lowsec space (<0.5 security rating, but >0) and never return to highsec, except when you know what you're doing and have business there.
As for what you'll do in lowsec, you'll get into fights with random lowsec dwellers and die almost instantly, because you have no idea what you're doing. You probably won't make ISK, or certainly not much, and you may even be in the starter ship more often than not. However, some of the people who blow you up will give you advice, ask you questions, etc., and eventually you may meet up with a group who'll take you in. It's also possible to find such a group via the various forums that EVE players hang out in. This is the beginning of the path to becoming a player who knows what he is doing.
You see, it's possible to play EVE for hundreds or even thousands of hours via the PvE route and still have no idea how to actually play EVE. One day, the career PvE player will be running missions in his 20bn ISK faction battleship loaded up with expensive officer modules, and suddenly a few strangers will appear nearby. The career PvE player will attempt to flee, but will be unable to for some reason he can't fathom. He'll fire his expensive weapons at his tormentors, but it won't do him any good. Soon, his 20bn ISK faction BS will blow up, and those evil strangers will grab all the juicy loot. The poor victim then quits the game forever, in all likelihood.
I played EVE from 2006-2012, and it's been nine whole fucking years since then—but I was a lowsec pirate, wormhole dweller (when WHs were new and absurdly profitable), and small-gang lowsec PvP hawk for most of that time. I ended up with over half a trillion ISK across my various accounts, and half a trillion ISK was worth far more then than it is now. But the ISK is only fuel for fun, and fun in EVE comes only in the form of PvP.
If my advice is outdated, then EVE is no longer EVE. But I strongly suspect that venturing forth into lowsec is still the best way by far to really get into the meat of the game. If you do need some pointers, you can always join EVE University and take their classes, and read the EVE University Wiki. This is by far the most complex MMORPG still running, or possibly ever; there is a great deal to learn.