Chapter 24: College Interview

Two surprises awaited Tamara on the Friday of her interview; the first surprise occurred in the morning just after she entered the hotel conference room suite after having breakfast with the two other Clarke finalists who were there this weekend. The other surprise would come later in the day.

Tamara looked around the conference room foyer and saw that there were light refreshments set out on a buffet table and about a dozen people were standing in groups and chatting. As she walked through the entrance, she noticed someone familiar and stopped suddenly, and the two kids, who were following closely behind her, almost bumped into her.

“Jeez, Tamara, why’d y’all stop?” Terence hissed at her.

“Ohmygod,” Tamara exclaimed, “It’s Dr Tarmson—I didn’t even think about who’d be on the committee...”

“Y’all know her?” Terence asked.

“Met her once and worked with her for a few days. She’s a scientist with DARPA.” She explained what the agency was. “They’re licensing one or two of my patents.”

“Patents? Shit, you must be hot stuff, then,” Charlene muttered. “At dinner, you mentioned that you wanted Hopkins and I’ll bet you get the full ride too.”

“I hope I do,” Tamara told her. “At least, to be admitted. I want to work at their APL, actually.”

Then Tarmson noticed Tamara, and with a big smile, walked over to greet her.

“Hello, Tamara. Did you decide about taking the job I offered you yet?” she asked and laughed.

“Hi, Dr Tarmson. I was really surprised to see you here—and I told you last year that I wanted to get some real school in before starting a real job.” They both chuckled. “Let me introduce you to these other finalists here. We’ve been getting acquainted with each other. Dr Helene Tarmson, this is Terence Dryer from Texas and Charlene Russo from Ohio. My fellow finalists,” she finished introducing them.

They began to talk when a man announced, “We need to start now, so everyone, please go into the conference room. Bring your coffee if you want.”

Tamara whispered to Tarmson as they walked into the room, “I made some improvements on the design of my ... project. I was planning to send you the writeup soon, but since you’re here, can we meet?”

Tarmson looked at her. “I’d love to see what you’ve done, my dear. We might get a few minutes after this meeting.”

The meeting turned out to be primarily a meet-and-greet. The chairman of the Clarke Scholars Foundation ran the meeting and had the committee members introduce themselves and then asked the three finalists to introduce themselves, talk about their backgrounds, and tell the group about their education expectations and anticipated career plans. A few minutes later, three college-aged kids were shown into the room.

“Let me introduce you finalists to your student guides for the weekend,” the chairman told them. “We’ve paired each of you with one of our current Clarke Scholars based on your backgrounds. They will take you to your interviews, to a special lunch, and give you a tour of the campus. This evening we’ll have dinner with some potential faculty mentors and after dinner, you’ll have a chance to informally chat with them. Now, I’ll let our current Clarke Scholars introduce themselves...”

Each gave a quick summary of their studies and projects and then Jill Benavides, a junior majoring in math, introduced herself to Tamara. Jill would be her guide.

The meeting ended and Jill asked Tamara, “Would you like to see part of the campus now? I’m supposed to tell you a little about campus life, but we’ll be having an informal gathering later and we can talk then with the others. The regular tour will be a formal one. We have about an hour or so now before lunch and then you go to your interview.”

“Give me a few minutes first, Jill, okay? I need to talk to Dr Tarmson, okay? It’s kinda confidential.”

“Sure. I’ll wait out there,” she pointed at a sitting area outside the conference suite.

Tarmson was talking to one of the committee members and noticed Tamara waiting. She excused herself and came over to her, looking around.

“Okay, Tamara. We can sit right here; everyone’s leaving. What’s up?”

“So I had an idea to miniaturize the RF generator and came up with something unexpected,” Tamara began, and went on to explain how she had built a smaller, yet more powerful maser.

She went on, “But it’s still limited by the power supply. I still need to use a 24-volt lithium battery, minimum, and the one I use weighs over a pound.”

“Tamara, what you’ve done is just amazing. We haven’t even begun to look at the problem of focusing an RF beam yet but you approached the problem in a totally unexpected way. Yes, please send me your writeup. And consult with your patent guy too. This is definitely a new idea. Thanks for telling me about this, dear. Okay, gotta go; I need to get back to Arlington.”

Tamara rejoined Jill and Jill asked, “How do you know Dr Tarmson? She’s a manager or something at DARPA, right? And Hopkins has all kinds of DARPA projects.”

“Yeah, she’s the program manager of their Defense Sciences Office. I have some patents that they license from me.”

“Ooo, cool! You’re what? Eighteen and you have patents? I think only one of us current Clarke students has a patent.”

Tamara grinned. “Not eighteen, I’m fifteen.”

“Wow, fifteen. You must have jumped a lot of grades then.”

Tamara nodded, “Yep. I was home-schooled and went at my own pace. That was way too fast in math and science and too slow in humanities,” she giggled. “So when I began public high school, I concentrated on humanities and continued the science stuff in a college near me. According to the admissions office here, I have more than twelve college credits that can be transferred and another twelve that can be waived, so effectively I’ll have sophomore class status. If the Physics department approves, that is.”

“Skipping grades. No wonder you’re so young. So you’re from Florida,” Jill said as they were walking out of the hotel, “I’m from Atlanta and I remember all the stories about the stripped kids in Florida.”

“Stupid, isn’t that program? But you must have had the Naked in School Program in Atlanta, when you were there, right? That NiS law was passed maybe eight years ago. They just started it in Florida last year.”

“But it won’t last long there, right?” Jill said, grinning. “You must have heard about what that one school in Atlanta did—that school newspaper article that went viral?”

Tamara chuckled. “I sure did hear about it. Was that school where you went?”

“No, not even close. I live in Forest Park, in the south Atlanta area. That school where they had that article was in the northeast Atlanta area. But my folks told me that the school still kept up doing the Program even after other area schools had been dropping it. Kids at that school just started to rebel.”

They were walking onto the campus as they were speaking, and Jill pointed out some of the features.

“This is the athletics area,” she said. “We’re passing the football stadium and baseball field, obviously.”

“Did you ever have to be in the Program?” Tamara asked.

“Fortunately, no. Actually, the Program was running when I was in high school and I hated it; so did lots of kids, but sometimes a kid couldn’t avoid it, like if a parent made him. Some of the things I saw in it were gross. It was an open secret that kids could get out of it if they strongly refused to participate. Everyone knew that they couldn’t be forced to strip; there was something in the assault laws about that. So a lot of kids did refuse to do it. I refused too—but all that all happened before those child-sex-slavers took it over and made the Program almost impossible to get out of. I graduated right around then, so I escaped. What about you?”

“They tried to start it, but ran into some problems,” Tamara said, trying to hide a smirk.

“Uh, okay ... oh, so this is the Freshman Quad. All of the dorms here are where most of the freshmen live. This is probably where you’ll live, too. Um, tomorrow will be the campus life tour and you’ll see the insides of some dorms then. So what kind of problems would stop the Program?” Jill asked.

“Weird stuff, like everyone getting locked out of the auditorium for most of the day when the very first stripping assembly was supposed to happen. Also the school P.A. system stopped working when they tried to call the selected students. They also had problems getting random lists of kids printed—one list even had teachers’ names instead of students...”

Jill laughed, “Sweet! Were they made to strip too?” she giggled.

“As if,” Tamara giggled back. “No, somehow they figured out that list was wrong.”

They both laughed again and Tamara continued, “Oh, and the fed’s Program guy had a heart attack. Then, when they finally tried to start it, after they got all the problems fixed, the replacement Program person and some teachers went all mental or something and stripped themselves on the school stage before they could call up any kids and that got it stopped again. That happened again to a school district guy when he tried starting it all on his own. Weird stuff like that.”

Jill looked at her wide-eyed. “No shit. Stripped teachers too. All that stuff is totally weird. Okay, we’ll walk down here; this building we’re passing is the main building for the Arts and Sciences school. The library is ahead on the left but we’ll go to the right, to Kayser Quad, and straight ahead, those stairs, that’s the Breezeway. It’s considered to be the center of the campus.”

While they were walking through Kayser Quad, Jill stopped to speak with a few students she knew and introduced Tamara to them. They chatted for a bit but then they had to get to class.

“I’ll bet with Florida’s stripped-kids program, the Naked in School Program wasn’t such a big deal for kids to be naked, right?” Jill asked as they walked from the Breezeway onto Wyman Quad. “Oh, there’s the Shriver Concert Hall, straight ahead.”

“No, not hardly. The only thing similar was the nudity,” Tamara explained. “In the Stripped in Florida program, the parents made the kids get naked but if anyone tried to molest the kid, they’d get the book thrown at them. In the NiS Program, molestation was a Program requirement.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely true. I did see some nasty stuff happen bunches of times. Okay, now we’ll circle around to Decker Quad; that’s the Biomedical Engineering department on the left.” Jill looked at her watch. “Hey, we need to get to the Johns Hopkins Club—that’s where the Clarke Scholars Board is treating us to lunch. The club just reopened after a major renovation. You’ll meet your interviewer there and also the rest of the other Hopkins and Maryland scholars. Damn! I was supposed to tell you all about student life here and we wind up talking about stupid nudity programs.”

Tamara laughed. “Well, those things are in the news, so you could say we were discussing current events.”

“Good idea. Don’t say what we really discussed or else they’ll dock my pay,” Jill giggled.

“Which is...?”

“Zero. We volunteer for this,” Jill smiled. “I like meeting the new scholars.”

They entered the JH Club and were shown to a private dining room. Tamara recognized several of the committee members from the morning’s meeting, but there were a number of new people there too, and several more students were coming in. While she was looking around, she noticed that one person in the room stood out in particular. She appeared to be an older student, perhaps a grad student, and had a radiant smile as she spoke to several older people who clearly had that “college professor” look. But this woman had a “glow,” a magnetic personality, and to Tamara, she could sense a taste that somehow reminded her of her mother. A pure, good, trustworthy taste.

And something else, Tamara realized. The woman is a charisma powerhouse! The attraction is just flowing from her. I wonder who that angel could be.

She would find out very soon as she was roused from her thoughts by Jill, who was tugging on her arm.

“Tamara, you in there? I want you to meet your interviewer. Come with me.”

Jill led her over to the angel who, sensing the approaching two students, turned with an even brighter smile.

Tamara’s second major surprise of the day came as Jill introduced her. “Dr Emma Clarke, let me introduce you to Tamara Alexandre. Tamara, this is Dr Clarke, who specifically asked that she do your interview.”

Tamara was speechless. In all of her preparations, she never connected the idea that there was a real Clarke person behind the Clarke Scholars—she had lumped the scholarship program into the same category as the Fulbright or Rhodes scholarships. The guy behind the Fulbright, she recalled, was a Senator Fulbright, who had sponsored a law that created those awards just after World War Two. And the Rhodes program was fifty years older than that. Cecil Rhodes was a Brit who had set up the program for graduate study at Oxford.

But here’s a Dr Clarke and she looks like a college senior! Tamara thought. How can that be?

Clarke chuckled as she reached for Tamara’s hand. “Your expression says everything, doesn’t it, Tamara,” she said. “Don’t be embarrassed; most people who meet me have a similar reaction.”

Clarke’s marked British accent was the final blow to Tamara, who began giggling. “I’m sorry, Dr Clarke, everything today has been quite overwhelming. And then meeting you and...”

“ ... and finding out that I’m not only a real person, I’m almost a kid too, innit?” Clarke grinned broadly.

Tamara could only nod her agreement.

“So, Tamara, as Jill said, I’m to be your interviewer, but to put you at ease, let me say that you have an impressive school and professional record and, as well, an equally impressive Clarke exam score, don’t you. Our ‘interview’ is just a formality.” She made finger-quotes. “I was keen to meet with you and get to know you as a person. Now let’s circulate; Jill, you come along too, and we’ll greet some people.”

Clarke led Tamara around the room, introducing her to so many new faces that soon her mind was numb. She also met the rest of the current Clarke Scholars and after about ten minutes, a bell chimed.

Jill excused herself to join the other scholars. “I’ll see you later, Tamara,” she said. “Dr Clarke wants some time with you now. They’ll call me to come get you later.”

A voice called out, “Please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen.”

Clarke led Tamara to a table with six seats and four were already occupied.

Clarke again smiled that amazing smile. “Tamara, you met them before but probably won’t recall their names, so again, to your right is Dr Chester Montern. He’s the chair of Physics and Astronomy here at Hopkins. On his right is Dr Nora Silverberg, chair of Physics at Maryland. And on my right, it’s Dr Wilfred Zucker, the director of the APL, and next to him is Dr Stephanie Burger, the Hopkins Physics/Astronomy undergraduate advisor. As you know, my friends, this is Tamara Alexandre, our new Clarke Scholar.”

Tamara didn’t know. She sat down with a thud.

Clarke smiled at her. “No one told you? Bloody arses. They want to keep the charade going as long as possible. Yes, my dear, you did take the prize. Your math and physics tests got top marks, but your essays? Gobsmacked the readers, they did. Heh, one reader was ready to take your literature one and call it a master’s thesis, wasn’t she. Not quite, but you certainly impressed us. Now let’s talk about what you see us doing for you here at Hopkins. After lunch, we’ll have our private chat.”

When lunch was over, Tamara had already gotten a number of her questions settled. She would have all of her UMiami courses approved for JHU, including the special research courses from the medical school. Those, together with her high school AP classes, would give her a second-year standing and allow her to fill the resulting open time with research. There were research opportunities at the APL and others here at the Homewood campus. And if her faculty mentor, still to be decided, approved, she might be able to arrange to do her own independent research.

After lunch, Clarke brought Tamara to her office in the Physics/Astronomy Building.

“Tamara, I was keen to talk to you about a few things alone, things which struck me personally about how your background is like mine in so many ways. Please don’t think I’m being forward here, but when your application came in showing that you have patented inventions, I was alerted. That’s one of my rules; I want to know when a high-school student with patents becomes a candidate.

“Then I read your essays. Your current-events essay was presented almost like both sides of a Lincoln-Douglas debate, where you argued the practical, moral, and ethical components of both leading sides of the issue and showed, through a very well-reasoned approach, why the side you took was preferable. We’ve never had anyone take that approach before and you showed an amazing depth of knowledge in the topic. Tell me, do you have debating experience that you didn’t mention in your application?”

Tamara laughed. “I lucked out there. Yes, I had a debate with my parents about that very issue maybe a month before the exam and had looked up everything I could find to bolster my arguments. I decided to write the essay as if a debate was going on—it made it more compelling, Not like a dry recitation of facts.”

“It was brilliant. Now, much closer to my heart was your lit essay. However did you think of broadening the scope of your response to cover a number of books on our list?”

Tamara nodded. “I took some writing courses to prepare...”

Clarke looked amazed.

“ ... yes, I wanted to do well, so I signed up for two college courses over the summer. I got friendly with my recitation instructor, a grad student, and I asked her, if she wouldn’t mind to help me, to critique some essay samples. She said what I wrote was good, but I wanted ‘great.’ I asked her if possibly including other works to support my argument would improve the essay. She liked the idea and said it would be a good improvement; she told me that she would make that a suggestion to students in her own classes.”