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. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest Ive ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. Thats it. No big deal. Just three stories. 我今天很荣幸能和你们一起参加毕业典礼,斯坦福大学是世界上最好的大学之一。我没有从大学里毕过业。说实话,今天也许是在我的生命中离大学毕业最近的一天了。今天我想向你们讲述我生命中的三个故事。 The first story is about connecting the dots. 不是什么大不了的事情,只是三个故事而已 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Reed大学读了六个月之后就退学了,但是在十八个月以后我真正的作出退学决定之前,我还经常去学校。我为什么要退学呢? 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. |