Set Up For Success
From PSU M.S. to Rutgers PhD, Mike Fitzgerald is chasing his political science dream as far as it goes
Mike Fitzgerald’s dream of becoming a political science professor began in a class on radical economics, sparked by the words of a long dead anarchist.
Back then, Fitzgerald was pursuing his undergraduate degree at Boise State. Over the course of earning his bachelor’s degree, he discovered the writings of radical anarchist activist and feminist Emma Goldman. Though Goldman lived and wrote nearly a hundred years ago, Fitzgerald found her story and writing compelling. The spark of interest had been lit.
After college, Fitzgerald moved to South Korea. Over the next four years, he taught debate for a living, all the while reading widely from authors like Kimberlé Crenshaw and bell hooks, exploring an ever-growing interest in black feminist political thought and intersectionality.
“These authors just seemed so much more compelling to me than the mainstream accounts,” Fitzgerald explained. “Not only were they explanatory of the phenomena that we see, they also established a program for action that could take a moral stance on how we could improve the social condition of marginalized groups.”
By the time he returned to the United States, Fitzgerald was hooked—motivated by his reading to continue engaging issues of race, gender, and politics, pursuing not only understanding, but practical application. His next step: graduate school.
“I applied to three different political science master’s programs,” Fitzgerald said. “My grades in undergrad weren’t the best, so I wanted an opportunity to prove that I could do graduate work at a satisfactory level. I also wanted to get a better understanding of what graduate coursework and research was like before I committed to a five or six year PhD.”
In the end, Fitzgerald chose to attend Portland State’s Political Science master’s program.
“The size of the department [was a major factor for me,]” he explained. “It being a terminal program meant that the faculty would be more focused and invested in their master’s students. I didn’t want to be in a situation where master’s and PhD students would be competing for professors’ attention. … I also thought that Portland State had a more rigorous program than [its competitors,] and I wanted a challenge.”
Of course, it didn’t hurt that PSU also offered Fitzgerald the best funding package of the three schools to which he had applied.
Over the next two years, Fitzgerald dove headfirst into the world of graduate level academic study. He learned to integrate feminist theory with international relations and honed his writing skills to fit an academic audience. All the while, PSU’s faculty challenged him to grow, pushing him to find the “Why” behind his arguments and research, and readying him for the professional hurdles to come.
These days, Fitzgerald is a PhD student at Rutgers University, researching gender, representation, and democracy from a feminist methodology and perspective. Soon, he is hoping to embark on a field research trip to London, England. In short, he’s well on his way to achieving his dream.
“The consistent rigor and demand [offered at PSU]—all done in a supportive, generative way—really prepared me to succeed in a PhD program,” Fitzgerald said. “I feel super spoiled to have gone to Portland State.”