One might say that Sheldons always been a lecturer, just not as a part of his job. At any rate, in an effort to open up his professional life to more comedic possibilities, Dr. Cooper will be appointed to a junior professor post at Caltech from the second episode of the new season. This leads to some shenanigans with Howard, who begins to express an interest in working on a doctorate and who takes his class when no one else will Sheldon is too thoroughly obnoxious to handle as a teacher. Now, what Sheldons actually teaching remains a mystery at this stage, although the above teaser image might form some kind of clue. Whatever it might be, its bound to cause friction with Howard: his lack of a PhD (engineers dont need a doctorate to do their jobs) has led to over seven years of ridicule from Sheldon, and season seven had just seen the two begin to finally find a level in their friendship that didnt revolve around snarking at each other.