喬布斯畢業典禮的演講稿

　　I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.Truth be told,I never graduated from college.And this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That’s it. no big deal.Just three stories.

　　今天，我很榮幸能和你們一起參加畢業典禮，斯坦福大學是世界上最好的大學之一。說實話，(雖然)我從來沒有從大學中畢業，但今天是我生命中離大學畢業最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個故事。不說大道理，就是三個故事而已。

　　The first story is about connecting the dots.

　　第一個故事是關于如何把生命中的點點滴滴串連起來。

　　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?

　　我在里德學院讀了六個月之后就退學了，但是在十八個月以后，我還經常去學校。我為什么要退學呢?

　　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.This was the start in my life.

　　故事要從我的出生說起。我的親生母親是一名年輕未婚的大學畢業生。她決定讓別人收養我，她十分想讓大學畢業生收養我。所以在我出生前，她已經準備一切，讓一位律師和他的妻子收養。但是她沒有料到，在我出生后，律師夫婦突然決定要一個女孩。所以，我的養父養母突然在半夜接到了一個電話：“我們有一個意外降生的男嬰，你們想收養他嗎?”他們回答說： “當然!” 但是我親生母親隨后發現，我的養母從未上過大學，我的養父高中沒畢業。于是她拒絕簽訂收養合同。但在幾個月以后，因為我的養父養母答應她一定要讓我上大學，她才心軟同意了。

　　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 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 far more interesting.

　　在十七歲那年，我的確上大學了。但我天真地選擇了一個幾乎和斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校，我父母還處于工薪階層，為了交學費，他們幾乎耗光所有積蓄。六個月后，我幾乎看不到在學校的價值。我不知道(我生命中)要追求什么，我也不知道學校是否能幫我找到答案。但在學校，我將花光我父母這一輩子的積蓄。所以，我決定退學，并且我相信車到山前必有路。(不可否認)，我當時非常害怕，但現在回頭來看，這個決定是我一生中最明智決定之一。在我做出退學決定后，我再也不用去上那些我絲毫沒有興趣的必修課，我開始去聽那些看起來有趣的課程。

　　It wasn’t all romantic.I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5℃ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every sunday night to get one good meal a week at the hare krishna temple.I loved it. and much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example:

　　這一點也不羅曼蒂克。沒了宿舍，所以我要到朋友家睡地板;為了填飽肚子，我撿過值5美分的可樂罐;為了每周一頓的好一點的飯，每個星期天晚上，我穿街過巷，步行7英里到hare krishna教堂。我喜歡那里的飯菜。在好奇和直覺的引導下，我跌跌撞撞地遇到很多東西，這些后來被證明是無價瑰寶。我給你們舉一個例子吧：

　　Reed college at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer,was beautifully hand calligraphed. because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes,I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture,and I found it fascinating.

　　那時候，里德學院的書法課程也許是全美最好的。學校里的每個海報，抽屜上的每個標簽，上面全都是漂亮的書法。因為我退學了，沒有了正常的課程，所以我決定去上/書法課，去學學怎樣寫出漂亮的字。我學到了san serif 和serif字體，我學會了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中變化間距，還有怎么樣做最好的版式。那種美感、真實感和藝術感，是科學永遠不能捕捉到的，(我發現)那實在是太迷人了。

　　None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later,when we were designing the first macintosh computer,it all came back to me. and we designed it all into the mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. and since windows just copied the mac,its likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out,I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class,and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when i was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.