Instructor Information

About the Instructor

Vanessa has been a parttime lecturer for the University of Hawaii - Windward Community College since 1990. She taught noncredit computer software courses at various locations from 1987. Summer 2008 will be her last at Windward. She will be moving on to UH-Hilo in the fall.

Back before the dawn of the microcomputer era, Vanessa first took a class in computers during her senior year of college. She took it as an elective because "Computers seemed like it might be a field worth knowing." The class worked on a computer called a Challenger 20, which connected to a TV for a monitor and had a regular cassette recorder to record programs. At the time, all computer programs for small computers were written by the user in a language called Basic. Vanessa knew with her first line of computer code that she was in the wrong major.

After receiving her Bachelor's degree, Vanessa returned to school to pursue an education in computer programming taking classes at several different colleges. Realizing she would have to repeat courses at one place in order to receive a second bachelor's, she decided instead to work toward a Master's degree. In 1987 she finally completed her Masters degree from the University of Southern California extension program in Hawaii with a major in Systems Management and a certificate in Information Systems.

Vanessa first visted the online world in 1984 when she worked for an information provider called The Direct Connection which produced computer news for such online services as CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie, and Applelink. She was also a beta tester for the Prodigy Online Service when it first became a national service. Most of these early online services have been dropped or bought out by other companies. Vanessa says "It's been an amazing journey watching the online world develop!"

Vanessa has also worked as a computer consultant, technological assistant, writer/editor/photographer for a small newspaper, office manager, office clerk, postal clerk, and math tutor.

In addition to teaching, Vanessa does consulting work and is a mother to two wonderful teens. She enjoys reading science fiction and fantasy, watching movies, and hiking.