【龙腾网】你在多大的年纪就知道你想做什么

正文翻译

At what age did you know what you wanted to do with your life?

你在多大的年纪就知道你想做什么？

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Tom Crosley
When I was around 9 or 10 and in fourth grade, my parents started giving me Knight Kits as Christmas and birthday presents. (My dad had built radios as a kid and had been a communications officer in WW2.) Over the next several years I built short wave radios, stereo equipment, intercoms, CB radios and test equipment — everything but the portable CB radios still used vacuum tubes.
About the time I started junior high, I got hold of a working pinball machine that had been confiscated in a gambling raid. Rather than just endlessly playing it like any normal kid, I dismantled it for its parts. I was fascinated by the relays and other electromechanical components.
I built what I called a digital computer using the parts from the pinball machine parts, but it was actually just a glorified electromechanical calculator that could add, subtract, and multiply — it wasn’t really programmable. But still a decent science fair project for a 13-year-old student in 1960. I can’t remember if I won, but I did get some sort of Westinghouse Science award.

当我9岁或10岁左右，四年级时，我的父母开始给我骑士套装作为圣诞节和生日礼物。（我父亲小时候就制造过收音机，在二战中担任过通信官员。）在接下来的几年里，我制造了短波收音机、立体声设备、对讲机、 民用波段电台收音机和测试设备——除了便携式民用波段电台收音机外，其他所有设备都使用真空管。
大约在我上初中的时候，我找到了一台正在工作的弹球机，它在一次赌博袭击中被没收了。我不再像普通孩子一样没完没了地玩它，而是把它拆了下来。我被继电器和其他机电元件迷住了。
我用弹球机的零件制造了一台我称之为数字计算机的计算机，但它实际上只是一台美化了的机电计算器，可以进行加法、减法和乘法运算——它不是真正可编程的。但在1960年，对于一个13岁的学生来说，这仍然是一个像样的科学博览会项目。我不记得我是否赢了，但我确实获得了某种西屋科学天才奖。

So it was probably around this point that I knew I wanted to work on designing and building stuff like this as a career.
I became friends with the manager of our local Bell telephone office. It was a crossbar office, but there were still several smaller towns around us that were converting from older step-by-step systems. When that happened, they would literally destroy the old equipment with axes so competitors could not salvage it.
This manager knew about my interest in relays, and would let me know when an office was being converted, so I could have first dibs on any equipment before it was destroyed. I got dozens and dozens of working telephone relays this way to use in various projects. This ignited my love affair with all things to do with telephones.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I was sexted to compete in a multi-state science fair in a neighboring state. A nearby university (Iowa State, where I would later get my BSEE at) flew me and other participants to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign where the fair was to take place in one of their private planes.
While on campus, I wandered into the campus bookstore and browsed the EE section. There I found a book called The Design of Switching Circuits, written by members of the technical staff at Bell Labs in 1951, which was all about relay switching circuits and Boolean algebra. I stayed up most of the night and drew up all of the Boolean equations for my project. The next day, I wrote them out during an oral presentation to the judges.

所以大概是在这一点上，我知道我想把设计和建造这样的东西作为一种职业。
我和当地贝尔电话局的经理成了朋友。这是一个交叉的办公室，但我们周围还有几个较小的城镇正在从旧的分步系统改造。当这种情况发生时，他们真的会用斧头摧毁旧设备，这样竞争对手就无法抢救了。
这位经理知道我对继电器很感兴趣，并会在办公室改建时告诉我，这样我就能在任何设备被摧毁前抢先使用。我用这种方式得到了几十个工作电话继电器，可以在各种项目中使用。这点燃了我对所有与电话有关的事情的热爱。
当我上高中二年级时，我被选中参加邻近州的一个多州科学博览会。附近的一所大学（爱荷华州立大学，我后来在那里获得学士学位）将我和其他参与者空运到伊利诺伊大学香槟分校（university of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign），展会将在那里的一架私人飞机上举行。
在校园里，我走进校园书店，浏览了电子工程师部分的书籍。在那里，我找到了一本书，名叫《开关电路的设计》，这本书是贝尔实验室的技术人员于1951年写的，内容都是关于继电器开关电路和布尔代数的。我熬夜了大半个晚上，为我的项目起草了所有的布尔方程。第二天，我在给评委的口头陈述中把它们写了出来。

So it was pretty much a given that I would major in electrical engineering. Iowa State University was close (40 miles away), and had an excellent EE department. I was mostly interested in digital logic design because of my past involvement with telephone switching logic.
After graduation, I went to work at my dream job, at an R&D lab which was part of GTE (General Telephone and Electronics) designing digital logic for one of the first electronic telephone switches sold to the independent (non-Bell) telephone industry. I got the first four of my 28 patents on that project.
As I was working on that project, I realized that a lot of my hard-wired logic could be done with computers in the future (I was assuming a minicomputer like the PDP-8, since this was just before the first microprocessor, Intel 4004 was invented), so I went back and got an MS in Computer Science while working there.
Since then, I have had a successfully career sometimes designing hardware, sometimes software, or both like I am currently doing. I’m still working full-time at the age of 74 with no plans to retire.

所以我的专业是电气工程，这几乎是理所当然的。爱荷华州立大学离这里很近（40英里远），有一个优秀的电子工程系。我最感兴趣的是数字逻辑设计，因为我过去参与过电话交换逻辑。
毕业后，我得到了理想的工作，在一个研发实验室工作，该实验室是GTE（通用电话和电子）的一部分，为出售给独立（非贝尔）电话行业的第一个电子电话交换机之一设计数字逻辑。我获得了该项目28项专利中的前四项。
在我从事这个项目的时候，我意识到我的很多硬接线逻辑将来都可以用计算机来完成（我假设是像PDP-8这样的小型计算机，因为这是在第一台微处理器Intel 4004发明之前），所以我回去工作时获得了计算机科学硕士学位。
从那以后，我有了一个成功的事业，有时设计硬件，有时设计软件，或两者兼而有之，就像我现在做的一样。我74岁时仍在全职工作，没有退休计划。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Arun Srinivas
I’ve been thinking about this from the first day my people started advising me about my life and future. When I thought people were asking me what to become, they wanted to know where I will study, how much marks I wanted to get, how much I wanted to earn and own. Nothing else.
I followed the herd unintentionally. I scored average marks in 10th board exams. I took computer science because I was not good at drawing which the biology stream required, also I didn’t want to ba an accountant for no reason. Hence commerce stream also was rejected.
I sucked big time in computer science. I didn’t like programming at all. I struggled a lot with other subjects too. Hence with almost same average score in 12th board exams, I opted for Electronics to get away from Computer Science.
Somebody said I would be qualified to both join core industry and IT industry with a degree in Electronics.
I wasn’t interested in studying the core electronics subjects at all. I tried and motivated myself in different ways. I couldn’t help. Also I was in a one-sided love with a very beautiful girl. For a long time during my college days. That is how I wasted my college days.

从第一天起，我就开始给我的生活和未来出谋献策，我就一直在思考这个问题。当我想到人们问我要成为什么样的人时，他们却想知道我将在哪里学习，我想考多少分，我想挣多少钱，拥有多少财产，其余什么问题都没有。
我非故意状态下随大流。我在第十年级的大学入学考试上取得了平均分。我选择了计算机科学，因为我不擅长绘制生物学所需的图形，而且我也不想无缘无故地成为一名会计。因此，商业专业也被拒绝。
我在计算机科学方面学得很好。我一点都不喜欢编程。我在其他科目上也有很多困难。因此，在第十二届委员会考试中，我的平均成绩几乎相同，我选择了电子学来摆脱计算机科学。
有人说我有资格加入核心产业和IT产业，并获得电子学位。
我对学习电子学的核心课程一点也不感兴趣。我以不同的方式尝试和激励自己，但就是没办法。我还和一个非常漂亮的女孩一见钟情。在我上大学的时候有很长一段时间，我就是这样浪费我的大学时光的。

No guesses. I joined a not-so-known software company after my graduation. Yes, as a programmer. For more than 3.5 years now.
I’ve no idea what to do with my life. I google a lot, I read a lot for inspiration, all great stories of successful people, motivational movies, apps, what not, for the magical spark to strike me like in movies 
I even tried travelling to few places within my budget constraints. 
My mom expects me to join a well-known firm so that she can proudly say that her son works in a reputed firm.
All my relatives expect me to get married, have kids, and of course attend all their functions and events without fail. 100% attendance is mandatory there.
I just learnt that the more I wait for something to guide me magically to let me know what I wanted to do with my life, the more stagnant I become.
I’m just following a simple thing - try all the things I want to do. Every day.
I’m an introvert. Hence apart from my friends at school, college, neighborhood and office, I really didn’t make friends. Now I attend meetups, random events via meetup.com. Not that I did great but I tried.
I wanted to have a pet dog. I got a puppy. But I couldn’t continue having it for more than a week. I gave it to my friend. 

没有猜测。毕业后我加入了一家不太知名的软件公司。是的，作为一名程序员。已经超过3.5年了。
我不知道我的生活该怎么办。我在谷歌上搜索了很多，我读了很多关于灵感的书，所有关于成功人士的伟大故事，励志电影，应用程序，等等，希冀就像电影里那样，神奇的火花击中我。
我甚至尝试在预算有限的情况下去几个地方旅游。
我妈妈希望我加入一家知名公司，这样她就可以自豪地说，她的儿子在一家知名公司工作。
我所有的亲戚都希望我结婚生子，当然也一定会参加他们所有的活动。那是必须百分之百的出席。
我刚刚了解到，我越是等待有什么东西神奇地引导我，让我知道我想做什么，我的生活就越停滞不前。
我只是在做一件简单的事情——尝试我想做的所有事情—每一天都如此。
我是个内向的人。因此，除了我在学校、大学、社区和办公室的朋友外，我真的没有交朋友。现在我参加聚会和随机活动。不是说我做得很好，而是我努力了。
我想要一只宠物狗。我有一只小狗。但我坚持不了一个星期以上。我把它给了我的朋友。

I tried my hand at painting as a hobby. Now I can draw few things. That’s it.
I tried exercising and gym work-outs. Now it has become my habit.
I tried to talk to few people at Quora.
I tried to learn new things technically. I was a PHP developer. Learnt few front end frxworks, Python, github, MEAN stack.
I try to write at least one answer a week on Quora. That’s a big achievement for me.
These are the things that I did. There’re few million things like this I want to do in my life.
I feel life is all about trying different things and feeling good about it. 

我试着把画画作为业余爱好。现在我能画的东西很少了，就是这样。
我试着锻炼和健身。现在这已经成为我的习惯。
我试着和Quora上的几个人交谈。
我试着从技术上学习新东西。我是一名 个人网页开发人员。学习了一些前端框架，爬虫，社交编程及代码托管网站，最终栈。
我试着每周至少在Quora上写一个答案。这对我来说是一个巨大的成就。
这些就是我做的事情。我一生中想做的事情很少。
我觉得生活就是尝试不同的事情，并且感觉良好。