你在多大的年紀就知道你想做什麼_風聞

【來源龍騰網】

評論原創翻譯：

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.

當我9歲或10歲左右，四年級時，我的父母開始給我騎士套裝作為聖誕節和生日禮物。（我父親小時候就製造過收音機，在二戰中擔任過通信官員。）在接下來的幾年裏，我製造了短波收音機、立體聲設備、對講機、 民用波段電台收音機和測試設備——除了便攜式民用波段電台收音機外，其他所有設備都使用真空管。

大約在我上初中的時候，我找到了一台正在工作的彈球機，它在一次賭博襲擊中被沒收了。我不再像普通孩子一樣沒完沒了地玩它，而是把它拆了下來。我被繼電器和其他機電元件迷住了。

我用彈球機的零件製造了一台我稱之為數字計算機的計算機，但它實際上只是一台美化了的機電計算器，可以進行加法、減法和乘法運算——它不是真正可編程的。但在1960年，對於一個13歲的學生來説，這仍然是一個像樣的科學博覽會項目。我不記得我是否贏了，但我確實獲得了某種西屋科學天才獎。

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.

所以大概是在這一點上，我知道我想把設計和建造這樣的東西作為一種職業。

我和當地貝爾電話局的經理成了朋友。這是一個交叉的辦公室，但我們周圍還有幾個較小的城鎮正在從舊的分步系統改造。當這種情況發生時，他們真的會用斧頭摧毀舊設備，這樣競爭對手就無法搶救了。

這位經理知道我對繼電器很感興趣，並會在辦公室改建時告訴我，這樣我就能在任何設備被摧毀前搶先使用。我用這種方式得到了幾十個工作電話繼電器，可以在各種項目中使用。這點燃了我對所有與電話有關的事情的熱愛。

當我上高中二年級時，我被選中參加鄰近州的一個多州科學博覽會。附近的一所大學（愛荷華州立大學，我後來在那裏獲得學士學位）將我和其他參與者空運到伊利諾伊大學香檳分校（university of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign），展會將在那裏的一架私人飛機上舉行。

在校園裏，我走進校園書店，瀏覽了電子工程師部分的書籍。在那裏，我找到了一本書，名叫《開關電路的設計》，這本書是貝爾實驗室的技術人員於1951年寫的，內容都是關於繼電器開關電路和布爾代數的。我熬夜了大半個晚上，為我的項目起草了所有的布爾方程。第二天，我在給評委的口頭陳述中把它們寫了出來。

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.

所以我的專業是電氣工程，這幾乎是理所當然的。愛荷華州立大學離這裏很近（40英里遠），有一個優秀的電子工程系。我最感興趣的是數字邏輯設計，因為我過去參與過電話交換邏輯。

畢業後，我得到了理想的工作，在一個研發實驗室工作，該實驗室是GTE（通用電話和電子）的一部分，為出售給獨立（非貝爾）電話行業的第一個電子電話交換機之一設計數字邏輯。我獲得了該項目28項專利中的前四項。

在我從事這個項目的時候，我意識到我的很多硬接線邏輯將來都可以用計算機來完成（我假設是像PDP-8這樣的小型計算機，因為這是在第一台微處理器Intel 4004發明之前），所以我回去工作時獲得了計算機科學碩士學位。

從那以後，我有了一個成功的事業，有時設計硬件，有時設計軟件，或兩者兼而有之，就像我現在做的一樣。我74歲時仍在全職工作，沒有退休計劃。

原創翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.cn 轉載請註明出處

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.

從第一天起，我就開始給我的生活和未來出謀獻策，我就一直在思考這個問題。當我想到人們問我要成為什麼樣的人時，他們卻想知道我將在哪裏學習，我想考多少分，我想掙多少錢，擁有多少財產，其餘什麼問題都沒有。

我非故意狀態下隨大流。我在第十年級的大學入學考試上取得了平均分。我選擇了計算機科學，因為我不擅長繪製生物學所需的圖形，而且我也不想無緣無故地成為一名會計。因此，商業專業也被拒絕。

我在計算機科學方面學得很好。我一點都不喜歡編程。我在其他科目上也有很多困難。因此，在第十二屆委員會考試中，我的平均成績幾乎相同，我選擇了電子學來擺脱計算機科學。

有人説我有資格加入核心產業和IT產業，並獲得電子學位。

我對學習電子學的核心課程一點也不感興趣。我以不同的方式嘗試和激勵自己，但就是沒辦法。我還和一個非常漂亮的女孩一見鍾情。在我上大學的時候有很長一段時間，我就是這樣浪費我的大學時光的。

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. 

沒有猜測。畢業後我加入了一家不太知名的軟件公司。是的，作為一名程序員。已經超過3.5年了。

我不知道我的生活該怎麼辦。我在谷歌上搜索了很多，我讀了很多關於靈感的書，所有關於成功人士的偉大故事，勵志電影，應用程序，等等，希冀就像電影裏那樣，神奇的火花擊中我。

我甚至嘗試在預算有限的情況下去幾個地方旅遊。

我媽媽希望我加入一家知名公司，這樣她就可以自豪地説，她的兒子在一家知名公司工作。

我所有的親戚都希望我結婚生子，當然也一定會參加他們所有的活動。那是必須百分之百的出席。

我剛剛瞭解到，我越是等待有什麼東西神奇地引導我，讓我知道我想做什麼，我的生活就越停滯不前。

我只是在做一件簡單的事情——嘗試我想做的所有事情—每一天都如此。

我是個內向的人。因此，除了我在學校、大學、社區和辦公室的朋友外，我真的沒有交朋友。現在我參加聚會和隨機活動。不是説我做得很好，而是我努力了。

我想要一隻寵物狗。我有一隻小狗。但我堅持不了一個星期以上。我把它給了我的朋友。

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. 

我試着把畫畫作為業餘愛好。現在我能畫的東西很少了，就是這樣。

我試着鍛鍊和健身。現在這已經成為我的習慣。

我試着和Quora上的幾個人交談。

我試着從技術上學習新東西。我是一名 個人網頁開發人員。學習了一些前端框架，爬蟲，社交編程及代碼託管網站，最終棧。

我試着每週至少在Quora上寫一個答案。這對我來説是一個巨大的成就。

這些就是我做的事情。我一生中想做的事情很少。

我覺得生活就是嘗試不同的事情，並且感覺良好。