Your Job Now is to Tell Your Story

Anthony Garciano, IRT ’24

Hello! I’m Anthony, a current IRT scholar teaching third graders in Xiamen, China. It’s incredible to think that the brunt of graduate school applications is behind us, with many of us already receiving acceptances to stellar programs across the country. Congratulations! We’ve accomplished so much together, thanks in no small part to the IRT program and our advisors. 

If you haven’t met or chatted with Catherine Wong, my advisor, you need to. Catherine was instrumental in helping me refine my statements, encouraging me to harmonize my life story with what I aspire to do in the future. She was patient and perceptive, advising beyond the bones of what a statement should look like to help me flesh out the essence of what my statement should be. Our sessions became a time for contemplation and healing that I looked forward to each week. 

Through Catherine’s guidance, I leaned into my immigration story in my statements, which began in my grandmother’s chicken coop on Camotes Islands, part of the thousands of floating earth formations that dot the Pacific and make up the Philippine archipelago. I began to view the PhD as a natural extension of my curiosity over the ever-perennial question of “How did we get here?” 

This question has led me on a beautiful journey so far. It first took me west to study history at the University of Southern California as a dewy-eyed teenager. It carried me across the Pacific after graduation, where I pored over archives as a Fulbright scholar in Manila. Most recently, it brought me to Harvard, where I finished an education policy degree, redirecting my focus toward international education and the varied immigration pathways it opens up. 

Now, as I prepare for what’s to come, I am grateful to Catherine and the greater IRT community for their guidance and encouragement, which sustained me throughout this process. For future scholars looking to find themselves in academia, trust that you’ve already done the heavy lifting, even before starting any graduate application. Your job now is to tell your story.