Freda Raitelu - Class of 2013

Freda Raitelu still remembers - it was 9:27 a.m. on the last Thursday of 2010. She’d waited 10 years for this day to come. It was the day doctors found a match for a kidney transplant to alleviate symptoms of her chronic renal disease. Soon, she wouldn’t need a dialysis machine to stay alive.

With no time to waste, she enrolled in LaGuardia Community College two months after her transplant. She sometimes wore a surgical mask to class to avoid jeopardizing her health and happily immersed herself in the academic experience. “It was a turning point in my life,” an exhilarated Freda exclaims.

Freda thrived as a Liberal Arts major in the Honors Program, but sometimes struggled to pay for books, school supplies and a Metrocard. A Spring Into Action scholarship from the LaGuardia Community College Foundation that paid her tuition in full gave her the chance to focus more fully on her academic experience. Her world continued to expand. Now, Freda is a student representative on the executive board to the Northeast Regional Honors Council and a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She has co-presented on panels at national and regional honors conferences, sharing research on ethnic studies in American education and feminist themes in modern fairytales.

Now in her graduation year, Freda—with a 3.7 GPA— became the first community college student in the country to receive the prestigious Student of the Year Award from the National Collegiate Honors Council.

As a key member of LaGuardia’s Honors Student Advisory Committee (HSAC), she and her peers organize transfer and scholarship workshops and lead projects that promote peer-networking and civic engagement. “I find it really extraordinary to be part of a group that inspires all students to aim high, stay informed and be pro-active in their academic pursuits,” she says about HSAC. “LaGuardia and the Honors program really provide students with the platform necessary to successfully achieve their goals.”

Freda is graduating cum laude and will transfer to Smith College to pursue a degree in History or English. She dreams of becoming a university professor and running a non-profit in an urban community that will inspire and assist underserved young people pursue their education and career