It's so interesting to me how real life has very little to do with what you've learned here, and yet, what you've learned here, what you've struggled to achieve, will help you. I can't exactly say how: It's not something I think can neccessarily be defined. When I first went to war in Somalia I was surrounded by teenagers with guns and grenade launchers, there was nothing particular that I've learned at Yale that allowed me to survive. When I was in Rwanda in the genocide and was surrounded by bodies and had seen terrible things, there was no one particular class that I've taken that helped me get through. And yet something about the experience here--the friendships, the accumulating of facts and theories, the confidence I gained over the course of four years--allowed me to go to those places and helped me chart my own course.
讓我覺得非常有趣的是，你們在這里所學到的東西與現實生活的聯系微乎其微，但是你們在這里學到的、經過努力得到的一切都將會讓你們受益匪淺。我無法說清它會如何幫助你們，這不是可以輕易下結論的。當我首次深入索馬里戰地時，被一群荷槍實彈的青少年圍住，而耶魯教給我的知識無法幫我逃生。在盧旺達種族大屠殺時，我周圍滿是尸體和一些恐怖的東西，但沒有一門特定的課程能教我如何安然度過。但在這里所經歷的一些東西，如友誼、事實和理論的積累以及大學四年中所建立的自信，讓我有勇氣走向那些地方，規劃自己的事業生涯。
At Yale I met some of the smartest people I know but that kind of academic success really means very little once you've left this campus. I've never been asked what my grades were at Yale; that only happens if you run for president, and frankly, as we've all seen, it doesn't even matter. No one has ever asked me to talk about my senior thesis paper and I've never gotten a job because I was on the lightweight crew team. All those things were hugely important to me at the time, but right now, in truth, they are kind of dim memories for me. And I'm not saying they're frivolous or unimportant, they're not, and I treasure all the opportunities I had here at Yale.
在耶魯，我確實遇到了一些絕頂聰明的人，但這種學術性的成功一旦離開校園就不會有太多的意義。從沒有人問過我在耶魯時的成績，只有在競選總統時，這些才會被關注，但眾所周知，即使對總統競選來說，這些也不是很重要。也從沒有人要我談談自己的畢業論文，我也從沒有因為自己曾是輕量級拳擊手而得到一份工作。所有這些在大學時對我都非常重要，但是現在，這些對我來說只剩下了模糊的記憶。我并不是說這些毫無價值或無關緊要，相反，我珍惜在耶魯所擁有的一切機會。
But when you graduate, the slate is wiped clean. Outside of college campuses, I think we're encouraged today to see things through a very limited lens. On cable news, anchors have become caricatures, wearing their politics on their sleeves or their lapels, claiming that they're looking out for you and if you only watch their show or read their book, you'll be able to understand how things really are. It would be kind of humorous if it weren't, frankly, dangerous. On reality TV shows you watch people swapping lives, but a genuine swapping of ideas is something you rarely see outside of the college campus. We're fighting not just a war of terror but a war of ideas, and I think it's important that as a class, we all understand the importance of understanding other people's ideas, our enemies' as well as our friends'.
但是當你們畢業后，這一切就一筆勾銷了。我認為，在大學校園之外，人們鼓勵我們用有限的視角去看待事情。有線電視新聞主播出現在諷刺漫畫中，在他們的袖子和西服翻領上都布滿了政治色彩。他們聲稱在密切關注著你，你們只需看看他們的節目或讀讀他們的作品，就可以了解事情的真相。坦白說，如果這種聲稱不算是危險，至少也是滑稽的。事實上，電視節目中你可以看到人們交流生活，但是你很少在校園之外看到真正的思想上的交流。我們不僅僅是在跟恐怖行為做斗爭而是在跟思想做斗爭。我認為作為一個集體，理解其他人的觀點，不管是敵人的還是朋友的觀點，都很重要。
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