Zofia Kosakowski “makes everyone feel comforted and cared about,” says Kassidy Moore, a VSAC outreach counselor who worked with Zofia on her college applications during her junior and senior years at Rivendell Academy. Moore’s description is a fitting one for this aspiring elementary school teacher who briefly thought about becoming a nurse. “But then I realized, I couldn’t do anything medical,” Zofia says with a laugh. “I hate science, and there’s no way I could put in an IV!” But she recognized the common theme—a desire to help people—so she returned to her original career interest: teaching. After putting in triple the required hours for her senior-year internship as a teaching assistant in Rivendell’s sixth-grade classroom, Zofia is now a freshman at the University of Vermont, studying education and social work and planning to earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree under a five-year program. While nursing wasn’t quite the right fit, Zofia’s interest in the field stemmed from a desire to make an experience she had as a young child a little less frightening for others. When Zofia was nine years old, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The night she received the diagnosis, she says, “I was very scared. I hid in my closet because I didn’t want to go to the hospital. We ended up going to the emergency room, where I remember a lot of tears, a lot of doctors, and being stabbed a lot of times.” Zofia left the hospital that night with a prescription for regular insulin injections, which she was too afraid to do by herself. “For the first year, I relied on my mom and the school nurse,” she says, and it was a weird thing to have to explain to her friends. “It’s a constant thing in the back of my mind that most people never have to think about.”She says having diabetes taught her to be independent, driven, and in tune with her physical needs in a way that most kids don’t have to be. While it made her grow up a lot faster than her peers, she says, “Now, I don’t wish it away. It’s just a part of who I am.”Zofia’s independence and drive made her a hand-working, high-performing student who had her eye on college early on. Says Kassidy Moore: “Zofia is a first-generation college student who knew she wanted to go to college—and she put in the work to get there.” While Zofia’s parents always encouraged her, the family didn’t have any experience to draw upon when it came to the application and financial aid processes. Fortunately, Upward Bound and VSAC helped fill in the gaps. Zofia participated in the Upward Bound summer program after her sophomore and junior years, and she returned this past summer as a counselor. The program includes classes in the morning, community service in the afternoon, and social activities or time with counselors in the evening. “It’s a lot of fun. You have homework to do, but you also get to meet and hang out with people from other schools. Some of my best friends are people I met through Upward Bound. When I aged out of being a student and came back last summer as a counselor, I got to see those connections form and be one of those counselors that I looked up to so much. It was really special.”Being an Upward Bound student helped flatten the college learning curve for Zofia, giving her a jumpstart on her applications and a sense of what to expect as a freshman. Zofia says that Kassidy Moore and VSAC were a significant help as well. “Kassidy opened my eyes to so many different things. She was one of my number one supporters,” and a particular help on her college essay. “Writing about myself was a big struggle for me. Kassidy made that a lot easier.”Zofia was accepted to nine schools, but UVM was always the front-runner. Since she first saw the campus during a leadership conference in seventh grade, “it felt right. It sounds cliché, but it felt very welcoming. I can’t tell you how many college tours I went on afterwards, but I kept comparing everything to UVM. I came back four or five times in high school for different events, and every time, I would say to myself, ‘yep, this is it.’” She waited until she received her financial aid package to make her final decision. “Money was a big factor. I didn’t want to come out of college and be drowning in debt, especially since I knew I wanted a master’s, too.”Kassidy’s guidance and Zofia’s hard work positioned her well financially; while she qualified for the Vermont Teacher Forgivable Loan Program, which erases student loan debt for new graduates who teach in Vermont after graduation, Zofia declined the offer, since she had more than enough scholarships to cover her tuition. “I figured I’d save those free loans for others who needed them more than I did,” she says. Even a couple of months into her freshman year, as she continues to find her own way, Zofia is already looking for opportunities to encourage others. Kassidy Moore notes that she participated in UVM’s First Generation College Student Bridge Program, and “I’ve heard rumors that she has already connected with other first-gen students and is looking like a leader.” At home, Zofia is cheering on her 17-year-old sister, who followed in her footsteps at Upward Bound. “She struggles with some aspects of learning, and at first she was adamant that she couldn’t go to college. I told her, ‘Yeah you can,’” says Zofia. “In Upward Bound, she met a lot of people like her, including counselors with learning challenges who thrived in college. She’s now in the process of filling out her applications. I’m really excited for her.”As for Zofia’s youngest sister, she’s only 13, so she still has a few years to figure out her next steps. “She loves drawing and animals, and her current dream is to become an illustrator,” says Zofia. “She’s always tagged along with us to college fairs, and she loves visiting with the people from all the schools,” Zofia notes. “So if she decides to apply to college, she’s already collected a ton of business cards!”  This story is produced by Vermont Student Assistance Corp., created by the Vermont Legislature in 1965 as a public nonprofit agency, to advocate for Vermont students and their families to ensure that they achieve their education goals. Our vision is to create opportunities for all Vermont students, but particularly for those—of any age—who believe that the doors to higher education are closed to them. We begin by helping families save for education with Vermont’s state-sponsored 529 savings program. To help Vermonters plan and pay for college or career training, our counselors work with students in nearly every Vermont middle school and high school, and again as adults. Our grant and scholarship programs attract national recognition, and our loan programs and loan forgiveness programs are saving Vermont families thousands of dollars in interest. Visit vsac.org to learn more.Read the story on VTDigger here: Fairlee student wants to turn her love of helping others into a teaching career.