在十七岁那年 ，我真的上了大学。

　　But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford,

　　但是我很愚蠢的选择了一个几乎和你们斯坦福大学一样贵的学校,

　　and all of my working-class parent‘s savings were being spent on my college tuition.

　　我父母还处于蓝领阶层，他们几乎把所有积蓄都花在了我的学费上面。

　　After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.

　　在六个月后, 我已经看不到其中的价值所在。

　　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.

　　我不知道我真正想要做什么，我也不知道大学能怎样帮助我找到答案。

　　And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

　　但是在这里，我几乎花光了我父母这一辈子的全部积蓄。

　　So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.

　　所以我决定要退学，我觉得这是个正确的决定。

　　It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

　　不能否认，我当时确实非常的害怕，但是现在回头看看，那的确是我这一生中最棒的一个决定。

　　The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me,

　　在我做出退学决定的那一刻，我终于可以不必去读那些令我 提不起丝毫兴趣的课程了。

　　and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

　　然后我可以开始去修那些看起来有点意思的课程。

　　It wasn't all romantic.

　　但是这并不是那么浪漫。

　　I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms,

　　我失去了我的宿舍,所以我只能在朋友房间的地板上面睡觉,

　　I returned coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with,

　　我去捡可以换5美分的可乐罐，仅仅为了填饱肚子,

　　and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.

　　在星期天的晚上,我需要走七英里的路程，穿过这个城市到黑尔·科里施纳神庙(注：位于纽约Brooklyn下城),

　　I loved it.

　　只是为了能吃上好饭——这个星期唯一一顿好一点的饭，我喜欢那里的饭菜。

　　And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

　　我跟着我的直觉和好奇心走, 遇到的很多东西,此后被证明是无价之宝。

　　Let me give you one example:

　　让我给你们举一个例子吧：

　　Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.

　　里德学院在那时提供也许是全美最好的美术字课程。

　　Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was be autifully hand calligraphed.

　　在这个大学里面的每个海报,每个抽屉的标签上面全都是漂亮的美术字。

　　Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes,

　　因为我退学了, 不必去上正规的课程

　　I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.

　　所以我决定去参加这个课程，去学学怎样写出漂亮的美术字。

　　I learned about serif and san serif typefaces,

　　我学到了带短截线和不带短截线的字体,

　　about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations,

　　我学会了怎么样在不同的字母组合之中改变空白间距,

　　about what makes great typography great.

　　还有怎么样才能作出最棒的印刷式样。

　　It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture,

　　那种美好、历史感和艺术精妙，是科学永远不能捕捉到的,

　　and I found it fascinating.

　　我发现那实在是太迷人了。

　　None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.

　　当时看起来这些东西在我的生命中，好像都没有什么实际应用的可能。

　　But ten years later,when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.

　　但是十年之后,当我们在设计第一台Macintosh电脑的时候,就不是那样了。

　　And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.

　　我把当时我学的那些东西全都设计进了Mac。那是第一台使用了漂亮的印刷字体的电脑。

　　If I had never dropped in on that single course in college,

　　如果我当时没有退学, 就不会有机会去参加这个我感兴趣的美术字课程,

　　the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.

　　Mac就不会有这么多丰富的字体，以及赏心悦目的字体间距。

　　And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.

　　因为Windows只是照抄了Mac，所以现在个人电脑才能有现在这么美妙的字型。

　　If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class,

　　要是我当初没有退学，我绝不会碰巧选了这门书法课，

　　and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

　　个人电脑也可能不会有现在这些漂亮的版式了。

　　Of course it was impossible to connect he dots looking forward when I was in college.

　　当然我在大学的时候，还不可能把从前的点点滴滴串连起来,

　　But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

　　但是当我十年后回顾这一切的时候,真的豁然开朗了。