Highlights
Student Profile: Nashieli Marcano
The love of learning can be one of life’s great passions. And anyone who doubts that has only to read the following excerpt from Nashieli Marcano’s application to the PhD program in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh, to become a believer:
“Life has proven to have its twists and turns; what originally started as a pursuit of a career in aerospace has evolved into a passion for Latin American literature and research. As I started my career as an intern, developing software applications and analyzing Space Shuttle airframe structure anomalies, I pursued my bachelor’s in engineering technology. But somewhere along the road during this experience, I was introduced to literature courses in Spanish and French; and what began as a study for pleasure, quickly turned to one of devotion.”
Though Marcano, a School of Arts and Sciences K. Leroy Irvis Fellow who plans to teach Latin American literature and culture courses focusing on the Caribbean, may be passionately devoted to her studies, we know from Shakespeare that, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
What Marcano delicately describes as life’s “twists and turns” include an international move, two master’s degrees (one in Spanish and one in Library and Information Science) from two different universities, time spent living in Burkina Faso, and currently dividing her time between her studies in Pittsburgh and her two young sons and husband who are living in Ohio.
Marcano’s love story with learning began more than a decade ago in her native Puerto Rico. She wanted nothing more than to be an engineer, and her mother, a librarian, believed that in order for her daughter to get the best education in the field of aerospace to pursue her dreams, she would need to study in the United States. Marcano’s mother moved the two of them to Florida, and took a job as a secretary since she was not fluent enough in English to continue her career in a U.S. library. Marcano enrolled in the engineering technology program at the University of Central Florida and for three years worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an intern. It was exactly the job she had dreamed of. But it left her feeling cold.
“At the end of the day, I wasn’t fulfilled,” she says.
So while still in the midst of her engineering technology degree, she began a second bachelor’s in foreign languages. Then, following in her mother’s footsteps, she entered library school at the Florida State University.
“I thought that library science was a good way to merge the sciences and the humanities. I wasn’t thinking about a final goal,” she admits. “My objective was to study. It was trial and error, trying to find a way to integrate all of the things that I love.”
Along the way, Marcano’s support system grew by one. In 1998, she married a Fulbright Scholar and electronics professor named Philip, who not only encouraged her pursuit of education inside the classroom, but also introduced her to the educational benefits of world travel, beginning with a honeymoon trip to Europe. Or, rather, honeymoon “trips”—a week after they got married, he went to Spain and she went to France. They were apart for a month, exploring their respective corners of the globe, then met in France for a second month of travel as a couple. Since that time, she has completed summer study abroad programs in Canada, Europe, and West Africa, preferring to live with natives during those trips in order to better immerse herself into other cultures.
“When you sit down at the dinner table with a family, it is very intimate,” Marcano says. “It’s in those conversations and exchanges that you really come to understand what’s important to people.”
In 2002 she and her family settled in Ohio, where her husband teaches at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). Marcano picked up a second master’s degree, this one in Spanish, from Bowling Green University where she served as an adjunct instructor. Throughout this time, she was still searching for a way to combine her seemingly incongruent interests. She began applying for PhD programs close to home, but it was during a chance meeting at a professional conference that everything changed.
“I was talking with this amazing scholar about my search for the right graduate program and how I needed a fellowship in order to make this possible, and it turned out to be Professor Jerome Branche from the University of Pittsburgh who suggested the doctoral program in Hispanic Languages and Literatures,” says Marcano.
The program was exactly what Marcano had been looking for and, what’s more, Branche encouraged her to apply for a K. Leroy Irvis Fellowship.
“Most of the fellowships I was investigating were not available to first-year students,” explains Marcano. “When Professor Branche told me that it might be possible for me to be granted a fellowship right away it was like a miracle.”
Marcano began her PhD program at Pitt in the fall of 2007. She is taking a full load of classes during the week, then returns home to Ohio on Thursday evenings to spend the weekend with her family. After dropping her sons off at school on Monday morning, she drives back to Pittsburgh to immerse herself once again in student life. She credits her fellowship with making possible this latest chapter in her love story with learning, and when asked what her plans are for the future, she smiles and quotes her benefactor, K. Leroy Irvis: “Climb and help others climb.”
