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This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
這是蘋果電腦公司兼皮克斯動畫公司的CEO史蒂夫·喬布斯于2005年6月12日在斯坦佛大學畢業典禮上作的極富啟發意義的演講。
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
在呆了六個月之后，我便從里德學院輟學了，但在那之后，我以旁聽者的身份在學院里又呆了18個月才真正離開大學。那么，我為什么要輟學呢？
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
話還要從我出生之前說起。我的生母是一個年輕的未婚大學畢業生，她決定把我送去別人家收養，并堅持認為，收養我的人必須是大學畢業生。在我出生前，所有關于收養我的事宜都已經安排妥當了。我本該被一個律師和他的妻子收養，但等到我真正出生了，他和他的妻子卻在最后時刻決定他們真正想要的是個女孩。所以，我現在的養父母（他們當時在等候名單上）在半夜接到一通電話，“我們有一個意外出生的男孩，你們想收養他嗎？”他們回答說，“當然想。”但后來，我的生母發現了我的養母不是大學畢業生，而我的養父甚至連高中都沒有畢業，于是她拒絕在最終的收養文件上簽字。幾個月后，她才最后妥協了，因為我的養父母保證以后會送我去上大學。
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
十七年過去了，我真地上了大學。但我卻很天真地挑了一個和斯坦福大學一樣學費昂貴的學校，光是學費就花掉了我養父母辛辛苦苦積攢多年的積蓄，他們只是工薪階層。在學校待了六個月后，我看不出這學費花得值得。我不知道我的人生計劃是什么，也不知道大學能夠如何幫助我找到這一目標。而且，我在學校念書會花掉養父母一生的積蓄。于是，我決定輟學，并堅信這是一個正確的決定。當時，這是一個相當冒險的舉動，但今天回頭看看，那是我做出的最明智的決定之一。輟學之后，我馬上逃離了那些我對之乏味的課程，轉而開始旁聽那些看起來很有趣的科目。
