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Dr. Herman Sheffield absolutely loves his job.
He has only been an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering with a focus in Artificial Intelligence at MIT for just over two years but he can’t imagine working anywhere else. The entire department is so nice and collaborative and the labs he gets to work in? An absolute dream and more than he could have wished for. MIT has always been the goal for him - a nerd’s playground as his best friend had joked with him over the years. A techies Disney where he could learn something new every single day and still never scratch the surface.
And now he not only gets to work here but he gets to do actual funded research. Is he swooning? He feels like he’s swooning.
“Might want to lay off the coffee,” Kiaan, his post-doc, jokes with him later that morning. “You’ll scare off all our prospects.”
Herman laughs with him. “If they aren’t this excited about the future of AI I don’t want them.”
“Oh I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” Kiaan hums as he scrolls through the CVs their prospective undergrad research assistants have sent to them. It’s a passionate bunch, almost all of them coming highly recommended by his peers and Herman is excited to meet them but also dreading only picking three. He’d asked the department head and the dean of undergrad research multiple times for rubrics but both of them had told him to go with his gut and pick the people that fit and not the ones that checked every box.
For someone so logical, it was going to be difficult Herman knew. Go with his gut for his inaugural group of research assistants? A little crazy but maybe just crazy enough to work. Well he hoped anyway.
“Who have we got today?” Herman asks, letting his eyes rake critically over his office. Should he straighten up before his interviews?
Nah. Best they know what they are getting into from the start.
“You have Adya Patel at ten,” Kiaan reads out. “Then Melissa Jackson at ten fourty-five. A class at eleven thirty then Jahan Pour at one, Kevin Carter at two and you’re rounding out the interviews at three with Edward Leeds.”
“And two more tomorrow right?” Herman asks, digging through the stacks of half-graded assignments on his desk for his calendar. Maybe he should organize things just a little.
“Yeah, two more tomorrow. Seniors,” Kiaan clarifies. “The rest are sophomores or juniors.”
A conundrum. Herman doesn’t want to begrudge the seniors a year of research but was it really worth the time and money to teach them everything and then lose them after a year? If they weren’t graduating in May it would be nice to have some older students around to help teach and supervise when he and Kiaan weren’t available. Ugh. He just wants to hire all of them and not have to make this decision at all.
Thank god he has help - he would never be able to make the decision on his own.
Herman has nothing to do that morning so, while Kiaan is TA’ing one of the CompSci labs, he wanders over to the chemistry department. He knows that the organic chemistry professor who terrifies half the kids taking his Basics in Artificial Intelligence course has to have some sort of guideline that she uses to pick her research assistants. And, lo and behold, she does and she is all too willing to share it. A win for him this morning.
And, bonus, the chemistry building is by his favorite coffee shop on campus. He maybe treats himself to some extra espresso and pound cake to go with it, ripping the order sticker off to dump it in the garbage. His possible caffeine addiction is his little secret.
Kiaan is already waiting for him in his office when he returns and eyes the large cup in his hand knowingly and accusingly but he chooses not to say anything this time. Especially since Herman grabbed him his favorite americano and a slice of coffee cake to go with it. Let it be known that Herman J. Sheffield is not above bribery to get what he wants.
He’ll need to remind himself to get his new undergrad assistant’s coffee orders too - Friday meetings always go better with coffee and doughnuts. The tentative knock on his cracked office door almost causes him to knock over his coffee in excitement to welcome in his first interview.
Adya is a shy and quiet student. A transfer from a community college where she completed a lot of her humanities courses before she was accepted on a full scholarship to MIT. She twitches through half their meeting but, once Herman gets her talking about coding, she’s off like a rocket. He can tell Kiaan is on the same page with him at a glance and he puts a check by her name. An easy yes and so far so good.
He hopes they aren’t all like her or this will be a very difficult decision indeed.
Melissa, conversely, is an immediate no. Kiaan seems to like her well enough but she just doesn’t ‘click’ with the project Herman wants to start up. Her interests are more in electrical engineering which is great but she really doesn’t like coding which is a majority of the work they will be doing in the beginning. It’s pretty clear halfway through the meeting that Melissa has picked up on this too and she gracefully pulls her CV at the end. He figures he will see her in one of his upper level engineering classes at some point and he’s excited to have her as a student. He’s sure she will find a lab that fits her needs and he will if she can’t - Diane owes him a favor anyway and her lab might be right up Melissa’s alley. He makes a quick note of Melissa’s advisor so he can send her an email later about it.
Herman is so busy talking with her and Kiaan, in fact, he is late for his own class. His students, freshmen, seem a little upset to see him walking in at eleven forty-three. Clearly no one has taught them yet the fifteen minute rule is fake quite yet. But, in recompense, he gives them a free lesson to work on their week's homework in groups either in class or in the library. It’s a pleasant hour and a half and he spends most of it answering basic questions between levels of Candy Crush on his phone.
Should he be grading? Yes. Does he want to? No. So he isn’t.
Jahan is already talking to Kiaan when Herman makes it back to his office and they are getting along like a house on fire. Jahan isn’t a scholarship student and his grades are good but aren’t perfect. His schedule is tight since he works in addition to being a full time student but Herman really likes him and can tell he’s a hard worker. He puts him in the ‘strong-maybe’ column.
Kevin is in the same boat as Jahan - no scholarship but an on campus job instead of an off campus one. He was a biology major that switched to computer science this semester so he’s basically a freshman in the CompSci department. He’s got a natural talent that gets him in the maybe column too and, by the end of the interview, Herman is just about peopled out for the day.
“Just one more right?” He half begs to Kiaan who doesn’t seem to be doing much better. “Please say we are almost done.”
“Just Edward Leeds,” Kiaan confirms, checking his watch for the time.
“Right here!” Leeds says, sliding into the office panting and making both of them jump. “Sorry! My last class is completely across campus!”
“No worries,” Kiaan tells him with a smile, offering him a bottle of water from the mini-fridge that Edward gratefully takes and drinks from. It’s still early in the semester and it’s hot outside for Boston. Herman is forever grateful that he gets to drive between buildings and park close now if he wants to instead of walking like his students. “It’s nice to meet you Edward!”
“Oh, uh, I go by Ned actually,” Edward, Ned, tells them with an embarrassed shrug.
“Well Ned, tell us why you’re interested in the future of AI,” Herman prompts and the kid is off like wildfire.
Ned Leeds is smart Herman determines quickly. He gives them a little background about wanting to work for a leading tech company like Stark Industries or the Future Foundation - he’s been following the late Tony Stark’s AI research for years it seems. He flounders for just a split second when they ask him about his experience with AI - his eyes out of focus and his jaw loose - but he recovers quickly. Ned has already sat through two seminar classes so he’s well versed on the current state of Artificial Intelligence and he’s excited to get his hands on some software -
“Again?” Herman asks. “When would a sophomore have had the chance to mess around with a functional AI?
“Sorry!” Ned quickly apologizes. “For the first time! I haven’t had the chance to do any AI coding!” His face is red but also… confused? Herman doesn’t know what to make of it really. Leeds seems to know more about AI than he should but he hasn’t listed any relevant experience.
Curious.
“Well I think that’s all we need,” Kiaan interrupts the silence. “Thanks so much Ned! We’ll let you know the decision in a week or less! Hopefully!”
“No, thank you,” Ned gushes as he stands, reaching out to take Herman’s offered hand…
And. It’s really the strangest thing Herman has seen in a while. Ned goes to shake his hand but his eyes gloss over and his face goes slack and his hand keeps moving. It’s like a fixed action pattern. Like he can’t stop what he’s doing.
A split second later, Ned shakes himself out of it and stares at his frozen hand before letting it drop limply to hang at his side.
“Are you all right?” Herman asks, his own hand twitching towards his phone. If this kid is going to pass out or have a seizure or something in his office he needs to call someone post haste. He knows his limits and medical emergencies are definitely one of them.
Ned looks a little confused. A little embarrassed. A little angry. But he smiles and waves them off, stuttering out some excuse that makes no sense to Herman and hustling out of the office as quickly as he came in.
“Huh,” Kiaan breathes and Herman agrees. By unspoken agreement, they both ignore the end of the interview and focus on the rest instead. It’s a pretty easy decision actually and Ned Leeds ends up in the ‘yes’ column with Adya.
“Two more tomorrow,” Herman nearly whines to Kiaan in the main office, making the CompSci secretary break into cackles at their misfortune. But, two days later, Herman gets to send out the congratulatory email to Adya, Jahan and Ned and set up their first lab meeting. He celebrates that night at dinner with his husband and drinks way too much red wine but the hangover the next day is totally worth it.
The next time Ned Leeds shakes his hand the kid is excited but so focused on it that it nearly unsettles Herman. Regardless, perfect handshake for the start of a, hopefully, perfect mentorship.
He can’t wait.