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Being a high school senior also meant thinking about college. I wanta be applying to Smith and Wellesley. My mother thought I should go everywhere I wanted. My father said I was free to do that, but he wouldn't pay if I went west of the Mississippi or to Radcliffe, which he heard was full of beatniks. Smith and Wellesley, which he had never heard of, were acceptable. I never visited either campus, so when I was accepted, I decided on Wellesley based on the photographs of the campus, especially its small Lake Waban, which reminded me of Lake Winola.
上了高中也意味著要認真思考升學問題。我想申請史密斯與韋爾斯利。母親認為，只要我喜歡，去哪里都無所謂；父親也尊重我的選擇，但我若到密西西比河以西的大學或拉德克利夫女子學院，他不會幫我出學費，因為在他的印象里，這些學校充滿了“垮掉的一代”。他沒有聽說過史密斯學院和韋爾斯利學院，不過如果我去念，他沒意見。不管是史密斯或韋爾斯利，我都沒去過，所以獲知被兩校錄取后，根據兩校提供的照片，我決定選擇韋爾斯利。韋爾斯利的校園美麗如畫，校內的瓦班湖讓我想起家鄉的維諾拉湖。
I arrived at Wellesley carrying my father's political beliefs and my mother's dreams and left with the beginnings of my own.
我初到韋爾斯利時，還抱著父親的政治觀與母親的理想，四年學習下來，已漸漸能獨立思考。
I didn't hit my stride as a Wellesley student right away. My struggles with math and geology convinced me once and for all to give up on any idea of be coming a doctor or a scientist. My French professor gently told me, "Mademoiselle, your talents lie elsewhere."
一開始，我并未發揮出一個韋爾斯利學生應有的水平。數學與地質學讓我叫苦連天，自此徹底斷了當醫生或科學家的美夢。法文課上，教授客氣地跟我說：“小姐，你的天分在別的地方。”
One snowy night during my freshman year, Margaret Clapp, then President of the college, arrived unexpectedly at my dorm, Stone-Davis, which perched on the shores above Lake Waban. She came into the dining room and asked for volunteers to help her gently shake the snow off the branches of the surrounding trees so they wouldn't break under the weight. We walked from tree to tree through knee-high snow under a clear sky filled with stars, led by a strong, intelligent woman alert to the surprises and vulnerabilities of nature. She guided and challenged both her students and her faculty with the same care. I decided that night that I had found the place where I belonged.
一年級的一個雪夜里，校長瑪格麗特·克拉普突然來到我的宿舍——可以俯瞰瓦班湖的戴維斯樓。她走進餐廳，希望大家幫忙輕輕搖掉宿舍四周樹木上的雪，以免樹枝被積雪壓斷。滿天星斗下，我們在齊膝深的雪里，從一棵樹走向另一棵樹，帶頭的一位是堅強而睿智、敬畏與呵護大自然的女性。她也以同樣的呵護來引導和挑戰她的學生與教職員。在那一晚我決定我屬于這里。
Madeleine Albright, who served as Ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration, started Wellesley ten years before me. I have talked with her often about the differences between her time and mine. She and her friends in the late fifties were more overtly committed to finding a husband and less buffeted by changes in the outside world.
在克林頓政府先后擔任美國駐聯合國大使和國務卿的馬德萊娜·奧爾布賴特是我學姐，早我十年畢業，我們經常談論這期間韋爾斯利的變化。50年代末期，她和同學們多半將心思放在找丈夫上，不太關心外界的變化。
In Madeleine's day and in mine, Wellesley emphasized service. Its Latin motto is Non Ministrarised Ministrare ―"Not to be ministered unto, but to minister" ―a phrase in line with my own Methodist upbringing. By the time I arrived, in the midst of an activist student era, many students viewed the motto as a call for women to become more engaged in shaping our lives and influencing the world around us.
韋爾斯利強調服務，不管是奧爾布賴特當學生或我當學生時，韋爾斯利始終重視服務精神。韋爾斯利的校訓是“ＮｏｎＭｉｎｉｓｔｒａｒｉｓｅｄＭｉｎｉｓｔｒａｒｅ”，意為“寧照顧他人，勿當被照顧者”，這和我的衛斯理宗教養是一致的。我進入韋爾斯利時，正值學生運動活躍的年代，對于韋爾斯利的校訓，許多學生解讀為呼吁女性更多地致力于塑造自己的生活，并影響我們周圍的社會。
