From Bolivia to LaGuardia to Barnard: One student's journey

Ivana Estrada, who grew up in Bolivia, transferred to Barnard College from LaGuardia Community College.

LaGuardia Community College isn’t a place that turns out celebrity graduates. As President Gail Mellow says, “I don’t have a Bill Gates -- or if I do, I don’t know that I do.”

What she does have, though, are “some wonderful and pretty amazing stories of what students have done with a LaGuardia education.”

She’s talking about graduates such as Ivana Estrada, Class of 2003, who transferred to Barnard College to study computer information systems through the ICP (Intercollegiate Partnership) program, a collaboration between LaGuardia and Barnard.

Estrada, 22, grew up in Bolivia. She moved to New York in 2000 to continue her education. When she started investigating colleges, she discovered that most schools were unaffordable. A friend recommended LaGuardia.

Estrada had studied English in high school, but taking college classes in her second language proved difficult. She found LaGuardia’s faculty, and its learning centers, exceptionally helpful. There, she was able to improve her English and learn the necessary terminology for her computer-related courses.

“I was in there every day,” she says. “I didn’t know what to expect from college, but you have a lot of support at LaGuardia, and that’s something I didn’t expect.”

Within a semester, Estrada got into the swing of college. Over the next three years, which included time studying in New Zealand, she became increasingly comfortable -- and increasingly involved. She was in the honor society and served as the society's webmaster, and was a teaching assistant. She had internships and held off-campus jobs in Web development, computer programming and database development.

Plus, she experienced LaGuardia’s extremely diverse society.

“I learned so much about different religions, different cultures, different languages,” she says. “That was really interesting to me because in my country, we pretty much speak Spanish, and 98 percent of the society is Catholic."

“People liked to learn from each other. Students kept their own identity, but, at the same time, they were fine with each other and studying together and learning from each other. And, most importantly, they accepted each other.”

Now she’s at Barnard on a full scholarship. And if all goes well, she’s likely to contribute to one of LaGuardia’s proudest statistics: Family income increases 17 percent for its graduates.

“Whenever I meet someone who is applying to LaGuardia or is a student at LaGuardia,” Estrada says, “I only tell them one thing: Be aware of all the resources LaGuardia has. LaGuardia gives you all those opportunities to go in any direction you want to."

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From Bolivia to LaGuardia to Barnard: One student's journey

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