My office on campus would never be mistaken for the digs of media moguls Rupert Murdoch or Sumner Redstone. There is room for a desk, a book case, a couple of chairs, and not much else. I'm not one to dress for work in a Brooks Brothers suit, either. The combination probably puts my intimidation factor somewhere below that of Donald Trump. Or so I thought.
On a nondescript Wednesday morning, Barbara Dempsey, a longtime office assistant at the university, knocked on my door to let me know my 10 a.m. appointment had arrived. I was a bit taken aback by her extra word of caution: My visitor was extremely frightened to meet with me. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, my guest was only 14 years old. She was participating in a job-shadowing day, sponsored by a regional agency called YouthWorks, which helps students explore different careers.
I walked to the front lobby and introduced myself to my shadow. Her response was not much louder than a whisper, and she worked hard not to make eye contact. Barbara wasn't kidding.
I hung up my guest's winter jacket, escorted her to my office, and offered her a seat. In the process, I gleaned from her that the shadowing experience was her mom's idea. She didn't really aspire to be a writer, and—with grammar that could use some improvement—she admitted she didn't know what she wanted to pursue. I told her not to worry; when I was her age, I still dreamed of playing second base for the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. She smiled and mentioned she was a big fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and liked the front page of the newspaper I had taped to my office wall showing the team's captain, Sidney Crosby, hoisting the Stanley Cup.
Before long, I found out she enjoys writing poems; her baby sister once slammed a door in her face, prompting her friends to laugh hysterically; and she didn't go to her middle school's formal dance last year because it would have been boring. By the afternoon, we were editing a story together, and I must admit she had several good ideas. When our day together neared an end, I suggested to her that all she needed to remember about our time together was this: No matter what she chooses to do when she grows up, she would never regret having a good education. She nodded in agreement as we walked to the lobby. With her mom waiting in a car outside, she gave me a hug. Barbara, from her desk, gave me an approving smile.
I think Cote de Pablo, the subject of this issue's cover story, "Prime Time," would have been pleased, too. Today, Cote is one of the stars of network television's top-rated drama, NCIS. But when she was 10 years old, she reveals, she was a "shy child who didn't speak English well." Years later, when she enrolled at Carnegie Mellon, she was still "both incredibly fragile and incredibly strong." Cote sounds a lot like someone I just met.
—Robert Mendelson
Executive Editor
