ith help from Goddard Riverside’s OPTIONS Center for Educational and Career Choice, Rosanna Quezada was the first person in her family to attend college.

(She is proud to report that since she entered Ithaca College in 1996, both her older brother and sister also decided to pursue college degrees.)

Rosanna first encountered OPTIONS as an eighth-grader. She had just emigrated with her family from the Dominican Republic and was still learning English. Jane Heaphy (now OPTIONS Director, then a counselor) came to her class to recruit students for an early awareness college program. Rosanna was sold. OPTIONS quickly became, in her words, a second home.

“I think I took advantage of everything OPTIONS had to offer,” she says. “My friends and I used to stop by a few times a week. Jane was like a mother to us. I have so many great, great memories.”

Rosanna’s memories of middle and high school are saturated with OPTIONS. She remembers the pride she and her friends had in being a part of a new program that would help them get into college. She remembers one-on-one counseling, visiting colleges throughout the northeast, the time an OPTIONS counselor came to her house to speak with her father (in Spanish) who did not want her to participate in overnight trips. She also recalls making a video for Manhattan Neighborhood Network, meeting college students to whom she could relate, a great group of peers who “wanted to do something with their lives,” and a lot of pizza.

“I would recommend OPTIONS to everyone, “ she says. “I felt sorry for the kids who didn’t have OPTIONS. We were getting prepared since freshman year – we were 10 steps ahead of them. They were lucky to get a half an hour with the school counselor.”

Through OPTIONS, Rosanna met a student from Ithaca College who sparked her interest in the school. Working closely with her OPTIONS counselor she applied to Ithaca along with several other schools. Ithaca ultimately offered her the best financial aid package and a chance to live outside of New York City. She majored in Community Health and is now an educator with Health Plus, New York State’s HMO, conducting workshops for children, adolescents and parents on a range of health topics.