Kauai student’s path from Running Start to library career

A Kauai path built one campus step at a time

At Kauai Community College, the library is more than a study space. For Alyssa Silva, it became the place where a Kauai High School student first stepped into college work, then built a career path that now reaches graduate school.

Silva first walked into the Kauai Community College Library about a decade ago as a Running Start student. She was 16 then; now she is 26. In that span, she earned an associate degree in accounting from Kauai CC in 2019, transferred to the University of Hawaii–West Oahu, completed a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting in 2021 while living on Kauai, and is now pursuing a Master of Library and Information Science degree at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.

For Kauai families, that sequence matters because it shows a practical route that does not require leaving the island at 18 and never looking back. Silva’s path moved through local institutions, local work, and local support systems, with each stage adding credentials instead of replacing the last one.

How Running Start opens the door

Running Start, also called Early Admission, is the entry point that made Silva’s path possible. Kauai Community College describes it as a partnership between the Hawaii State Department of Education and the University of Hawaii System, and says eligible high school students can take college courses at a University of Hawaii campus as part of their high school coursework.

The college also says the program is available to qualified students attending public, charter, or private high schools in Hawaii, and that students may earn both high school and college credit. That makes Running Start more than a head start. It is a way for local students to test college-level expectations while still connected to their home campus, their home school, and their home community.

Silva’s story shows how that can work in real life. She began at Kauai CC while still at Kauai High School, then kept building at the same campus as a student employee before moving on to higher degrees. For students weighing whether they can handle college work early, her example offers a concrete answer: yes, if the structure, advising, and campus support are there.

The library as a workplace, classroom, and launchpad

Silva’s work as a student assistant in the Kauai CC library is what pushed the story from school success into career development. In her own words, “I basically grew up in this library in terms of my career,” and, “I came here when I was 16, and now I’m 26.”

That line captures the unusual value of a campus library in a small-island setting. It is not just where students check out books. It can also be where they learn how information systems work, how patrons are helped, and how a public institution serves a community.

Kauai CC says its library offers research assistance and information-literacy instruction in person, at a distance, and electronically. The collection is substantial for a community college campus: more than 48,000 physical books, nearly 300 DVDs, more than 250,000 e-book titles, and 40,000 streaming videos. The library also provides access to more than 58,000 journal titles and millions of magazine and journal articles through full-text databases.

The reach extends beyond the building itself. Kauai CC says interlibrary loan gives students access to 4 million print books within the UH System libraries at no charge. For a student balancing classes, work, and life on island, that kind of access can be the difference between having enough material for an assignment and having to look off-island for help.

Why the numbers matter for Kauai students and families

The broader campus profile helps explain why this pathway is so important locally. Kauai CC says 76% of its students are from Kauai, 78% receive financial aid, and 60% transfer to online bachelor’s programs. Those figures point to a campus that is serving residents who often need flexible, affordable, and geographically realistic options.

That is the real policy value of Silva’s story. It shows how a public college on Kauai can function as a bridge between high school and advanced study, especially for students who need to keep family ties, work schedules, and housing realities in mind. It also shows that library work can be more than a student job. In Silva’s case, it became professional training that led toward librarianship itself.

Her next step fits that trajectory. UH Mānoa’s Library and Information Science program is ALA-accredited and offers a 39-credit MLISc. The curriculum focuses on libraries, archives, and digital cultures, with a distinct emphasis on Hawaii and the Asia-Pacific. That makes it a logical graduate path for someone whose academic and professional life has remained tied to the islands.

A third stage crossing, and a larger campus story

Silva is preparing to cross Kauai CC’s commencement stage for the third time, this time to earn her master of library and information science degree from UH Mānoa. Kauai CC’s 2026 commencement is scheduled for Friday, May 15, 2026, at 4:30 p.m., with public viewing beginning at 3:30 p.m. The ceremony will be held on the lawn in front of the ahu/social sciences building.

That local graduation also sits within a broader systemwide moment. UH says spring 2026 commencement ceremonies across the 10-campus University of Hawaii System run from May 9 through May 16, 2026. Kauai CC’s ceremony is part of that span, but Silva’s story gives it a deeper local meaning: one campus helped launch her academic life, then helped frame the next milestone in a career that began in its own library.

For Kauai, that is the strongest takeaway. A student who started at Kauai High School, stepped into Kauai CC through Running Start, worked in the library, and kept advancing through UH campuses shows what an island-based education pipeline can do when it is built to serve local students where they are.