關注社會:你的大學是不是必需?

BENJAMIN GOERING does not look like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, talk like him or inspire the same controversy. But he does apparently think like years ago, Mr. Goering was a sophomore at the University of Kansas, studying computer science and philosophy and feeling frustrated in crowded lecture halls where the professors did not even know his name.“I wanted to make Web experiences,” said Mr. Goering, now 22, and create “tools that make the lives of others better.”

本傑明·戈林(Benjamin Goering)的長相和說話方式都不像Facebook的創始人馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)，也不像他那樣備受爭議。但是他們的想法顯然是相似的。兩年前，戈林先生在堪薩斯大學(University of Kansas)讀大二，學習計算機科學和哲學。在擁擠的大教室裏，他感到鬱悶，在那裏，教授們甚至不知道他叫什麼。“我想要創造網絡體驗，”現年22歲的戈爾說，“創造出那種讓其他人生活得更好的工具。”

So in the spring of 2010, Mr. Goering took the same leap as Mr. Zuckerberg: he dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco to make his mark. He got a job as a software engineer at a social-software company, Livefyre, run by a college dropout, where the chief technology officer at the time and a lead engineer were also dropouts. None were sheepish about their lack of a diploma. Rather, they were proud of their real-life lessons on the job.“Education isn’t a four-year program,” Mr. Goering said. “It’s a mind-set.”

所以，在2010年的春天，戈爾先生跨出了和扎克伯格相同的一步：爲了做出成績，他從大學退學，搬去了舊金山。他在一家社交軟件公司Livefyre得到了一份軟件工程師的工作。這家公司是由一個大學輟學者創立的，當時的首席技術官和首席工程師也是從大學輟學。他們並沒有因爲缺少一張文憑而羞於啓齒，反而因爲自己從工作中獲得的現實生活經驗感到自豪。“教育不是一個四年的項目，”戈爾先生說，“而是一種思維模式。”

The idea that a college diploma is an all-but-mandatory ticket to a successful career is showing fissures. Feeling squeezed by a sagging job market and mounting student debt, a groundswell of university-age heretics are pledging allegiance to new groups like UnCollege, dedicated to “hacking” higher education. Inspired by billionaire role models, and empowered by online college courses, they consider themselves a D.I.Y. vanguard, committed to changing the perception of dropping out from a personal failure to a sensible option, at least for a certain breed of risk-embracing y? Perhaps. But it worked for the founders of Twitter, Tumblr and a little company known as Mr. Goering was wrestling with his decision, he woke up every morning to a ringtone mash-up that blended electronic tones with snippets of Steve Jobs’s 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, in which he advised, “love what you do,” “don’t settle.” Mr. Goering took that as a sign.

以往人們總覺得大學文憑是成功事業的敲門磚，而今這種觀點正顯露出缺陷。低迷的就業市場和高企的學生貸款帶來的壓力，讓一大批處在上大學年齡的叛逆青年宣佈投奔“不上大學”(UnCollege)這種旨在“攻擊”(hack)高等教育的新團體。受到億萬富翁榜樣的激勵，再加上便利的網絡大學課程，他們認爲自己是獨立自主的先鋒。至少對於這一羣敢於冒險的特立獨行的人來說，退學不再是個人的失敗，而是一個明智的選擇。冒險？也許吧。但是這個模式放在Twitter、Tumblr，以及一家小公司——蘋果的創始人身上都成功了。當戈林在權衡自己的抉擇時，他設置了這樣一段混搭鬧鈴，電子樂混合着史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)2005年在斯坦福大學(Stanford University)的演講片段，他在當中說道，“熱愛你的工作”、“不要停下來”。戈爾把這看成是一個信號。

“It’s inspiring that his dropping out basically had no effect, positive or negative, on the work and company and values he could create,” he said of the late Apple that oft-quoted address, Mr. Jobs called his decision to drop out of Reed College “one of the best decisions I ever made.” Mr. Jobs’s “think different” approach to education (backpacking through India, dining with Hare Krishnas) is portrayed in countless hagiographies as evidence of his iconoclastic ed, ambitious young people who consider dropping out of college a smart option have a different set of role models from those in the 1960s, who were basically stuck with the acid-guru Timothy Leary and his “turn on, tune in, drop out” ramblings. Nowadays, popular culture is portraying dropouts as self-made zillionaires whose decision to spurn the “safe” route (academic conformity) is akin to lighting out for the territories to strike gold.

他還說起了已故的蘋果公司創始人：“鼓舞人心的是，他退學對於他的工作、他創建的公司以及他所創造的價值來說沒有影響，無論是積極的還是消極的。”在那次經常被引用的演講中，喬布斯把他從裏德學院(Reed College)退學的決定稱爲“我做過的最棒的決定之一”。喬布斯先生的“非同凡想”(think different)的教育理念（揹包穿越印度和克利希那派教徒一起吃飯）被記載在無數傳記中，證明着他是個打破舊習的天才。實際上，那些認爲退學是明智之舉的野心勃勃的年輕人和生於60年代的人擁有不同的榜樣。後者主要受到迷幻藥大師蒂莫西·利裏(Timothy Leary)以及他那句“打開心扉、自問心源、脫離塵世”(turn on, tune in, drop out)的影響。如今，流行文化正把輟學者描繪成白手起家的億萬富翁，他們決定摒棄“安全”路線（遵從學業要求），類似於爲了掘金而搶佔領地。

Bill Gates dropped out of college. So did Michael Dell. So did Mr. Zuckerberg, who made the Forbes billionaires list at . Zuckerberg’s story is familiar to anyone who has seen the 2010 film “The Social Network,” in which Harvard seems little more than a glorified networking party for him. While the other Phi Beta Kappas are trudging through their Aristophanes, his character is hitting the parties, making contacts and making history. The dropout-mogul-as-rock-star meme will get a further boost with coming Steve Jobs biopics, including “Jobs,” starring Ashton Kutcher, and another one in the works written by Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay for “The Social Network.”

比爾·蓋茨(Bill Gates)從大學退學，邁克爾·戴爾(Michael Dell)和23歲就登上福布斯億萬富豪榜的扎克伯格同樣如此。那些看過2010年電影《社交網絡》(The Social Network)的人都熟知扎克伯格的故事。對於扎克伯格來說，哈佛大學(Harvard)無非是一場光鮮的社交聚會。當其他被選入優等生榮譽學會的同學(Phi Beta Kappas)苦讀他們的阿里斯托芬(Aristophanes)時，他的興趣卻是享受聚會、廣交朋友，以及創造歷史。隨着一系列喬布斯傳記電影即將上映——其中包括由阿什頓·庫徹爾(Ashton Kutcher)主演、《社交網絡》的編劇阿倫·索爾金(Aaron Sorkin)操刀的《喬布斯》，這一“輟學生大亨成爲巨星”的文化基因將進一步發揚光大。