Campus Cutie: Kate Mitchell

Meet Kate, a sophomore in the SAS Honors Program, cat enthusiast, and museum guard at the Zimmerli! 

Name: Kate Mitchell
Hometown: Highland Park
Major/Minor: History/Public Policy
Relationship Status: Taken

What are you involved in on campus?
I am a member of the Rutgers Fencing team. I’m a sabre fencer and have been fencing since my freshman year of high school. It’s fantastic exercise and also a super fun sport. It allows you to both compete individually and as a team. I’m also a Barbara Voorhees Mentor, which is a program run through Douglass. I get to work with a fantastic instructor and assist with designing lesson plans and teaching feminist issues.

What makes you want to continue putting time into these activities?
For fencing, I just have a great team and we all cheer each other on. It’s just a very supportive community. Fencing is also just a great way to exercise and work on finesse and balance. You also just get to play with swords, which is always fun.

Being a mentor is super rewarding. I get to work with these incredibly smart and determined Douglass women, and I get to spend a lot of time researching and reading about things I’m very passionate about. Overall it’s just a fantastic experience and I would recommend applying for any Douglass upper classmen.

What made you decide to go to Rutgers?
I always kind of knew I would end up at Rutgers. My mother works at Rutgers and I receive tuition remission. So economically Rutgers made the most sense for me. But beyond that, Rutgers because it is such a big school, has so many opportunities, and just an endless number of things to do.

What has shaped your time most so far at Rutgers?
I think it was definitely my classes, one class in particular. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to study and for fun, because I always adored history, I decided to take a history course, Europe: Gender, Sex, and Society. I didn’t take a lot of classes I liked my first semester here, but this class was so inspiring and had such a brilliant professor. I essentially just fell in love with history again and I don’t think I would have decided to be a history major if it weren’t for this class. And now I really can’t imagine myself on any other path.

We have inside sources that you wrote “reform the education system” on RUPA’s Before I Die Boards earlier this year. What did you mean by that?
Education is a super important thing and not everyone is as privileged as we all are to have access to it. Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but not if the American school systems are defunding schools and not providing proper financial support to lower socioeconomic school districts. America has scored poorly in reading and math, and it keeps dropping. No Child Left Behind is not an effective tool for education reform, and something new needs to be done. Personally, I had a pretty dysfunctional high school experience and essentially my graduating class and I witnessed our school system facture and fall apart. This definitely fueled my desire for education reform. J

What other things are you passionate about?
Cats and making art with my roommate!