Intro to Me...

My name is Donna Melton and I am originally from Los Angeles, CA. I was born in San Gabriel & lived in Montebello, (just east of East LA) until I was 18. I grew up a Catholic school girl. I attended grammar school at Marian School in Montebello and spent 9th through 12th grades at Saint Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs. I moved to Leucadia after graduation and got my AA in General Education from Mira Costa College. I then transferred to the University of San Diego and received my BA in Psychology. (I also took some courses at San Diego State.) Not knowing what to do after graduation, I moved back to Montebello and received a certificate in Computer Programming from the Computer Learning Center in Los Angeles. From there, I moved to Irvine, then to San Diego, and I now live with my husband and two children in Oceanside.

My experience with technology was very limited, even through college. In fact, I graduated without even taking a computer course. I'm not sure that they were required when I was going to school. It was not until I was going the Computer Learning Center that I even tried to browse the internet. At the time, we only had dial up & AOL. It was very slow & I was easily frustrated, so I did not spend much time on the computer other than punching and testing code for school. Through the years, at different jobs, I have had to develop and cultivate certain technological skills. I believe I became most proficient while I was doing technical support for a small software company. I worked from my home and had to login to customer's servers through pcAnywhere, download and debug the software, and then load it back up. I also was in charge of training and documentation. I really learned a lot. With my job now, (I am the Accounting Manager for a Packaging Distribution company,) I am mostly working with spreadsheets and Accounting/Inventory software. I depend greatly on Microsoft Outlook. I am definitely a PC person. I had never even touched a MAC before our first class. I have Office 2007 loaded on my PC at home (and still getting used to it), and Office 2003 at work.


The part of the CSUSM/COE Mission Statement that grabs my attention is working together to transform public education. I admire the focus on educational equality. I believe that it is a noble and innovative effort to start at this level. Incorporating lessons in diversity is fundemental to equality in the classroom. It has to start somewhere. I'll be honest and list "location" as the main reason for me choosing CSUSM. (That, & I really did hear good things about the program.) But, now that I have seen where the attention lies, I am really excited about being here.