Bill Gates’ Commencement Speech at Harvard 2007 

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard corporation and the board of overseers. Members of the faculty, parents and especially the graduates.

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.”

I want to thank Harvard for this honor. I’ll be changing my job next year and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates for taking a much more direct route to your degrees.

For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson called me Harvard’s most successful dropout.

I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class. I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Balmer to drop out of business school.

I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation.

If I’d spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

Harvard was a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating.

I used to sit in on lots of classes that I hadn’t even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Courier House.

There were always a lot of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew that I didn’t worry about getting up in the morning.

That’s how I came to be the leader of the antisocial group. We clunged each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there and most of the guys were math-science types. The combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean.

That’s where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee you success.

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975. When I made a call from Courier House to a company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that had begun making the world’s first personal computer. I offered to sell them software.

• commencement畢業(yè)典禮

• President Bok--哈佛大學(xué)校長(zhǎng)德里克·博克，任期:1971-1991年和2006-2007年。從2006年7月1日至2007年6月30日擔(dān)任哈佛大學(xué)臨時(shí)校長(zhǎng)。博克是當(dāng)代唯一一位兩次擔(dān)任哈佛校長(zhǎng)的人。

• Rudenstine--哈佛大學(xué)校魯?shù)撬固筃eil L. Rudenstine(1935-) ，1991-2001年擔(dān)任哈佛大學(xué)校長(zhǎng)。是文藝復(fù)興時(shí)期文學(xué)的學(xué)者，1964年在哈佛大學(xué)獲得博士學(xué)位。

•  incoming即將就任的

• President Faust--德魯·吉爾平·福斯特(Drew Gilpin Faust)是哈佛大學(xué)第28任校長(zhǎng)（2007年7月1日至2018年6月30日）。她是哈佛的第一位女校長(zhǎng)，也是第一位沒有哈佛學(xué)位的哈佛校長(zhǎng)。

• Harvard Corporation西半球最古老的哈佛大學(xué)法人團(tuán)體，即哈佛大學(xué)董事會(huì)或哈佛大學(xué)校董委員會(huì)。現(xiàn)校董會(huì)由校長(zhǎng)和11位校董構(gòu)成。是哈佛兩個(gè)校務(wù)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)機(jī)構(gòu)中較小的一個(gè);另一個(gè)是校務(wù)監(jiān)督委員會(huì)或監(jiān)事會(huì)。

  據(jù)百度百科，法人團(tuán)體，又稱職業(yè)群體，是指那些由從事同一種工業(yè)生產(chǎn)而單獨(dú)聚集和組織起來的人們所構(gòu)成的群體，它為組成團(tuán)體的人們提供道德約束、職業(yè)倫理及規(guī)范體系。

• the Board of Overseers，校務(wù)監(jiān)督委員會(huì)或監(jiān)事會(huì)哈佛兩個(gè)校務(wù)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)機(jī)構(gòu)中較大者，有30名成員。調(diào)研大學(xué)的工作，就有關(guān)大學(xué)的教育政策和教育實(shí)踐提出建議。

•  faculty大學(xué)全體教師

• graduate畢業(yè)生

• degree學(xué)位

• timely及時(shí)的

• resume簡(jiǎn)歷

• applaud贊賞

• take a direct route to sth通過直達(dá)方式，獲得

•  for my part至于我，對(duì)我來說

•  Crimson--the Harvard Crimson哈佛校報(bào)。

• dropout輟學(xué)生

• valedictorian[?v?l?d?k?t?ri?n, -?tor-] 畢業(yè)典禮發(fā)言的優(yōu)秀畢業(yè)生代表，此指優(yōu)秀輟學(xué)生代表

• my own special class我所代表的輟學(xué)生這個(gè)特殊群體

• be recognised as被視為

• Steve Ballmer史蒂夫·鮑爾默（從2000年到2014年微軟首席執(zhí)行官兼總裁）。1980年讀斯坦福MBA,但是不到兩個(gè)月就輟學(xué)，以第30號(hào)員工的身份加入微軟。2020年2月26日，他以4690億元財(cái)富位列《2020胡潤(rùn)全球富豪榜》第9位。

• drop out輟學(xué)

• business school（斯坦福）商學(xué)院

• influence有影響的人

• graduation畢業(yè)典禮

• orientation迎新大會(huì)

• phenomenal了不起的

• academic life求學(xué)經(jīng)歷

• fascinating極有吸引力的

• sit in on旁聽（課）

• sign up for選課

• dorm宿舍

• terrific極好的

• live up快樂地過日子

• Radcliffe--哈佛大學(xué)的拉德克利夫方庭，以前是拉德克利夫?qū)W院的帶宿舍的校園，是哈佛大學(xué)本科生校園的一部分，位于美國(guó)馬薩諸塞州的劍橋市。

• Currier House--柯里爾宿舍樓是哈佛大學(xué)唯一的本科生院哈佛學(xué)院的12個(gè)本科生宿舍之一。它于1970年9月開放，以拉德克利夫?qū)W院(Radcliffe College)1956級(jí)學(xué)生奧德麗·布魯斯·柯里爾(Audrey Bruce Currier)的名字命名。

• late at night深更半夜

• anti-social group反社會(huì)團(tuán)體

• cling to each other抱成一團(tuán)

• validate證明…有價(jià)值

• rejection拒絕接受

• social people隨大流者，遵循社會(huì)主流價(jià)值觀的人

• make a call打電話

• Albuquerque阿爾伯克基，美國(guó)新墨西哥州城市。/'al-b?-?k?r-kē/

• personal computer個(gè)人電腦

• software軟件