So if you’ve been watching the news lately, you have probably seen photographs like this. Students protesting because their government is cutting subsidies to education.
如果你們最近有看新聞的話，你們可能看過這樣的照片。學生們抗議的原因是政府削減了教育補助金。
And the big part of the reason for this, both the government cutting subsidies and the student outcry is that getting a college education just doesn’t cost what it used to.
而對於這兩個現象——政府削減補助金，以及學生們出來抗議;它們的主要原因就是：大學教育已經不再是以前那個價了。
So if you graduated more than 2 decades ago, you might be surprised to know that it now costs students over 2.5x as much as it did for you, and that’s in real dollars for any economists in the audience here.
所以，如果你是20多年前畢業的，你可能會吃驚地發現：現在學生們要花你那時候2.5倍的錢，而且我們這裏説的是實際價格(而不是賬面價格)，如果觀眾裏有經濟學家的話。
And it’s not an easy problem. On one hand the cost is becoming harder for both students and governments to bear. But in the other hand employers are demanding an educated workforce.
這不是個容易解決的問題。一方面，教育成本對學生和政府來説都越來越難負擔;但另一方面，僱主們要的是一個受過教育的勞動力大軍。
They want employees with complex analytical skills. The world now runs out of what we dig out of people’s brains not just what we dig out of the ground. So, that’s the problem.
他們要的是具備複雜分析技巧的僱員。現在全世界急缺的不光是自然資源，還有優質的腦力勞動。對，這就是問題的癥結。
Now what’s the fix? Well, let me be completely honest with you. I have no idea.
那，怎麼解決呢?嗯，實話講，我完全不知道。
But what I do want to suggest is that maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong place. We’ve been expecting change to come from schools and governments, but what if the change came from us.
不過，我想説，可能我們一直以來尋求答案的方向是錯的。我們一直指望學校和政府能帶來改變，但有沒有可能其實是我們自己該改變呢?
I’d like to share my story and suggest that maybe an education doesn’t need to be expensive and what’s more, maybe we can learn better without it.
我想分享一下我自己的故事，告訴大家教育可能並不需要這麼昂貴，而且，我們在沒有它的情況下可能可以學得更好。
So in my case I was lucky. When I got accepted to college, I managed to narrow down my choice in major to two choices: Business and computer science. I was really interested in both.
就我個人而言，我挺幸運的。當我被大學錄取時，我成功地把專業選項縮減到2個：商科和計算機科學。我對兩者都真的非常感興趣。
With one you get to build companies, with the other you get to build technologies. And these two are not mutually exclusive. After all Bill Gates was a hacker before he built an empire.
其中一個讓你可以建立公司，而另一個讓你可以創造技術。而且這兩者並不是互相排斥的。畢竟，比爾?蓋茨在建立他的帝國前就是個黑客嘛。
But in my school I could only major in one. So I did what any freshman would do, and did a careful rational cost-benefit analysis.
不過，在我們學校裏，你只能選一個專業。於是我做了任何一個大一新生都會做的事：一個嚴密、理性的成本-收益分析。
So business it was, and after graduating I have no regrets. I learned a lot and I had a great time.
於是我就選了商科，而且畢業後我也完全沒有遺憾。我學到了很多，也過得很開心。
But after finishing my education, I had this longing for the path not taken. I really wanted to learn computer science. But going back to school didn’t appeal to me, four more years of my life, acceptance boards, tuition bills, I didn’t want to postpone my life and rack up debt, just to pursue a curiosity. I wanted the education, not the school.
但是在結束了我的大學教育之後，我一直對自己沒有選的那條路心懷渴望。我真的很想學計算機科學。但是，回學校讀書對我來説沒有什麼吸引力; 我不想再花4年時間，不想再應付一次招生委員會，不想再交學費，不想僅僅為了滿足好奇心就推遲我的人生並背一大筆債。我想要的是教育，而不是學校。
And then I remembered that Universities like MIT, Stanford and Harvard, had a habit of putting up classes online for free. I’ve done a few of these before and then a thought occurred to me. If you could learn a class, why not an entire degree.
然後，我想起來像麻省理工、斯坦福和哈佛這樣的大學都有把課程免費放到網上的習慣。我以前上過幾次這種課，而這時我突然有了一個點子：如果你能用這種方法學一門課，為什麼不直接學完一個學位呢?
So that was the beginning of an experiment. Would it be possible to get an MIT education in computer science without ever going to MIT? So it’s an intriguing idea,
於是，實驗就這麼開始了。到底有沒有可能不去麻省理工就得到麻省理工的計算機科學教育呢?這個想法的確挺誘人的，
but already you can probably notice some of the complexities and objections this might raise. So going to MIT is a lot more than just what you learn in the classroom.
不過你可能已經意識到這個事情很複雜，而且會引起一些人的反對。對，去麻省理工上學意味的並不僅僅是課堂上學的那些東西。
So how can you possibly hope to replicate something which is such a multifaceted experience? So I like to think college is a lot like eating at a five star restaurant.
你怎麼可能用別的東西替代一個這麼多維的體驗呢?我覺得上大學很像是去米其林五星餐廳吃飯。
You’re never paying for just the food. You get the wait staff, elegant decor, the fancy french wines. You’re paying for a complex and multifaceted experience.
你絕不是僅僅為了食物才付那麼多錢，你的消費還涵蓋服務員的服務、雅緻的裝潢、高檔的法國葡萄酒。你買的是一個複雜而多維的體驗。
And the same is true at college. You get networking with your intellectual peers, research opportunities and credentials from elite institutions. And like the fancy restaurant you get a big bill at the end.
這對於上大學來説也是一樣的。你可以和那些聰明的同輩互動，你能從這些精英機構得到研究機會以及證書。而且，和高檔餐廳一樣，你最終會拿到一份老貴的賬單。
And you know what, sometimes this system works, but just as you probably don’t want to go to a five star restaurant, every time you get hungry, you probably also don’t want to go back to school every time you want to learn something. I didn’t want the five course meal. I wanted my education “a la carte”.
而事情是這樣的，有時候這個系統的確有用，但就像你不是每次餓的時候都想去一家五星餐廳，你可能也不是每次想學點什麼的時候都要回學校。我不想要一頓五道菜的全餐，我希望我的教育是“按需點菜”。
So what mattered most to me, was being able to understand the big ideas of computer science; things like algorithms, artificial intelligence, encryption, and the Internet and being able to implement those ideas in computer programs.
所以，對我來説最重要的，一個是理解計算機科學裏的主要概念，比如算法、人工智能、加密以及互聯網;另一個是將這些概念運用到電腦程序裏。
So I decided to make my challenge simple. My goal will be to try to pass the exams an MIT student would do and to do the programming projects. I admit it is a simplification. It omits a lot of the MIT experiences.
於是我決定要讓這次大學經歷簡單點。我的目標是通過麻省理工學生需要通過的考試，並實際動手編程。我承認這的`確是個簡化版本。它把去麻省理工上學的大部分體驗都剔除了。
But for what I wanted to get out of it, it was a pretty good simplification. And what mattered more, it was a simplification that worked.
但對於我想從中獲取的東西來説，這是個非常好的簡化版本。而更重要的是，這個簡化版本的確有用。
So I was able to build a curriculum of 33 classes, that with one or two minor exceptions was identical to the course list an MIT student would use.
情況是這樣的，我當時成功地建立起一個包含33門課的課表，這和一個麻省理工學生要用到的課表幾乎是一模一樣的，只有一兩門課有點小區別。
And I was able to build this using only MIT’s free online available information. The only cost was for a few text books which meant I could follow this entire program for under $20xx.
而我建立這個課表時用的全是麻省理工放在網上的免費資源。唯一的花費就是買了些教科書，這意味着這個項目對我來説還不超過20xx美元。
Okay. So I have my goal and now I have the for the hard part: actually learning MIT classes.
好，現在我既有目標也有資源了。接下來是困難的部分：真的學完這些課程。
I’m not kidding myself, MIT is a really hard school, it’s notoriously difficult even for bright students and what’s more, I’m not going to have the help of faculty, and professors, and classmates that I can easily get help from.
我不是在鬧着玩，麻省理工是個很難畢業的學校，即使對聰明的學生來説這裏也是臭名昭著地難，而且，我還得不到教員、教授和同學的幫助。
So in theory the project’s doable but would it just be too difficult in practice? And when I told my friends about this, that I was planning on doing an MIT degree on my own, they reinforced those doubts.
所以，理論上來講這個項目是可行的，但它是不是因為太難而無法完成呢?而當我把這告訴我的朋友的時候，當我告訴他們我準備自學一整個麻省理工學位的時候，他們強化了那些疑慮。
They told me they couldn’t imagine trying to learn a MIT degree on your own. It’d be too difficult without the constant guidance and support of faculty members.
他們告訴我，他們根本無法想象光憑自己就學完一個麻省理工的學位，沒有教職人員的支援和引導這實在是太難了。
But that last point didn’t ring true for me, because when I went to college, I was in lecture halls like this one, where the professor would give a talk to an auditorium full of 300 students.
不過他們説的這最後一點在我看來並不正確，因為當我上大學的時候，我也去過這樣的講座，一個教授在裏面會對着300個學生講課。
Yeah, sure that if I had a question I could rise my hand, but if I really didn’t understand something it was up to me to learn it.
的確，如果我有問題要問可以直接舉手，但如果我有什麼不懂的，最終只能自己學着去解決。
So perhaps the doubts and worries over do-it-yourself degree, had more to do with it being unconventional, than it being genuinely more difficult than a formal program.
所以，對於自助學位的疑慮，可能更多地來自於它的不同尋常，而非它比正統求學難。
And as I started doing the first few classes, my results were even more surprising than that. I found I was able to learn faster using this approach than I ever had while in university.
而當我開始學前幾門課程的時候，我得到的結果甚至比這個還要驚人。我發現用這種方法學習的速度比我以前在大學裏學習的速度要快多了。
So far from being an obstacle, it turned out that not going to MIT had made my job a lot easier.
目前看來，這並不是一個障礙，事實證明不去MIT反而讓我的學習工作容易了不少。
Okay, so that last bit deserves a little bit of an explanation. After all, an MIT student has access to everything I do, and much much more. How can I possibly have an advantage over a student when I have fewer resources? It defies common sense.
不過，最後這一點我得多做點解釋。畢竟，我擁有的資源，MIT的學生都有，而他們還擁有很多我沒有的。當我的資源少於一個MIT學生的時候，我怎麼可能比TA有優勢呢?這很違反常識。
So in order to explain this, I need to do a little bit of a detour. I need to go into the geeky realm of personal productivity. So there is a tool called the TimeLog.
想要解釋這一點，我得繞點彎子，我得講點個人生產力方面的艱深內容。而我要講的是一種工具，它叫時間日誌。
And here is how the TimeLog works. You jot down the starting and the stopping times for every activity you do. And I mean every activity, from when you wake up in the morning, to when you
take out the garbage.
時間日誌是這樣用的：你記下你做每件事的起始時間和完成時間。我説的是所有的事，包括你早上幾時起牀，以及你什麼時候出去倒垃圾。
Now my guess is that most of you here have never done a TimeLog before. You can just imagine how irritating that is to if you do one, the results can be eye-opening.
我猜你們中的大部分人以前都沒有用過時間日誌，你們可以想象得出這個有多麼煩人。但只要你用過一次，它的結果會讓你覺得發現了新世界。
So here’s a recent Wall Street Journal article where the reporter did just that. She writes: “I soon realized I’d been lying to myself about where the time was going. What I thought was a 60-hour workweek wasn’t even close.
《華爾街日報》最近有篇文章，寫這篇文章的記者就幹了這個。她是這樣寫的：“我很快意識到，對於‘我的時間都用在什麼地方了’這一問題，我一直都在騙自己。我曾以為自己一週工作60小時，其實遠沒有那麼多。
I would have guessed I spent hours doing dishes when in fact I spent minutes. I spent long stretches of time lost on the Internet or puttering around the house, unsure exactly what I was doing.”
我本以為我花在洗盤子上的時間有幾小時，而實際上只有幾分鐘。在很大一部分時間裏，我都是在網上閒逛或在家裏瞎轉悠，並不知道到底要幹什麼。”
Now, because I am a huge geek I’ve done TimeLogs before and I can say the situation is even worse for students. The vast majority of time students spend, isn’t spent learning, it’s spent commuting to class, copying notes at Starbucks, and trying to stay awake in lectures.
而由於我是個資深極客，我以前也用過時間日誌，我可以告訴你們，學生人羣的情況要糟糕得多。學生所花的絕大部分時間都沒有用在學習上，而是用在了去上課的路上、在星巴克抄筆記、或者是在講座上盡力不睡着。
If you could total up the amount of time that students spend forming new insights, and remembering facts which is of course what learning is, it would be tiny. And for the most part, this is not even the student’s fault.
如果你能把學生用在“形成新見解”和“記住新要點”上的時間加總，換句話説就是用在學習上的時間，你會發現它其實很少。而這很大程度上並不是學生的錯。
After all, entrepreneurs often notice a startling difference in their productivity, at a start-up versus a big firm. Big institutions mean bureaucracy. They mean paper work, they mean doing what you’re told instead of what’s important.
畢竟，企業家們也常常發現自己在剛創業時和公司做大時的產出率完全不一樣。大機構意味着官僚主義。它們意味着更多的紙面流程，意味着你得做上級告訴你的事而不是真正重要的事。
So being an educational entrepreneur can therefore offer some learning advantages over people in a formal system. So, take lectures as a perfect example. So, when I would do MIT lectures, when I started doing the classes,
所以，像我這樣把自我教育當創業來做的人，比那些在正規系統裏學習的人更有學習優勢。比如講座就是個完美的例子。當我要聽一場MIT講座或者一門課的時候，
I would watch them at one and a half times the speed. This may sound very difficult, but the difference is barely audible in human speech, and of course, if it goes too fast, you just hit rewind.
我會用1.5倍速來聽。這聽起來可能很難，不過其中的區別基本聽不出來，而且，如果真的太快了，你完全可以倒回去重聽。
Students in a regular classroom don’t have access to a fast-forward or rewind button, even though I’m guessing most of them would like one. And the impact of this isn’t trivial.
教室裏的學生並沒有快進鍵和倒帶鍵可以用，然而我覺得他們其實都想要一套。這點不同帶來的後果可不小。
By being able to watch lectures at a slightly faster pace, and watching them sequentially, I was able to take classes that normally span four months, and watch them in two days of real time.
由於可以用稍微快一點的速度播放這些講座，並且可以連着把它們看完，我可以把正常情況下4個月的課程壓到2天內看完。
Or take assignments. Students do assignments because they have to. Yes, sometimes they facilitate learning, but sometimes they don’t. For example, if you are struggling with a concept why wait weeks to get your answers back?
還有作業。學生們做作業是因為有人要求他們這麼做。對，有的時候這對學習有幫助，但有的時候並沒有。比如，如果你正在為某個概念糾結，為什麼非得等好幾周才得到反饋呢?
When I would do a hard MIT assignment, I would do the questions with the solution key in hand, one question at a time, because it’s tight feedback loops like this that cognitive scientists recognize as being critical to learning.
當我需要做一份很難的MIT作業時，我手裏同時也拿着答案，每次只做一個題，因為認知科學家們認為這樣的及時反饋對學習來説至關重要。
And you don’t need to be a genius to apply these ideas either. Being able to replay key segments of lectures; being able to get immediate feedback on your skills; these are structural advantages that benefit slow learners as much as they benefit fast ones.
而且，並不是只有天才才能運用這些點子。能夠回放講座中的關鍵部分、能夠立即得到關於技能的反饋，這些結構性的優勢對慢學生和快學生來説都很有益。
So, where am I right now? As of this moment I’ve completed 20 of the 33 computer science courses in the MIT curriculum. And by completed I mean that I’ve passed those final exams and I did the programming projects associated with those classes.
那麼，到現在我學得怎樣了呢?現在我已經完成了MIT課表裏33門計算機科學課程的20門。我説的“完成”是指：通過了期末考試，而且完成了相關的編程項目。
And what’s more, because of speed-ups like this that I have mentioned, I’m on track to finishing the program in 12 months instead of 4 years.
更值得一提的是，因為有我剛剛提到的這些提速方法，我正順利地把4年的課程壓縮到12個月內學完。
So today the big topic is about how technology is going to change educational institutions and classrooms. I think this misses the point. The big upheavals in education aren’t going to be about schools, they are going to be about students.
今天我們談的主題是技術將如何改變教育機構和課堂。但我認為這個命題其實沒有切中要點。
And I am not alone in believing this. There is already grassroot organizations looking to rethink education, not from the top-down but from the bottom-up. These are movements that are not planned by schools or governments, but from students who are fed up with the limited options the current system provides.
而且不止我一個人這麼認為。已經有些草根組織在重新構思教育了，不是自上而下，而是自下而上。這些運動並不是由學校或政府策劃的，而是由那些受夠了現有體系裏有限選擇的學生們發起的。
Education hacking is the new trend. So billionaire investor Peter Thiel now gives $100,000 scholarship to students, not to go to school but to drop out, and start something interesting.
在教育方式上開闢新道路是現在的新潮流。所以億萬富翁Peter Thiel現在給學生們提供了一份10萬美元的獎學金，而且不是獎勵那些去學校的學生，而是獎勵那些從學校輟學來創造有趣事業的人。
And so when the best and brightest and most motivated start singling their talent by not going to school, the rest of the world will take notice.
而當那些最傑出、最有才、最有行動力的人開始通過不去上學來發揮自己的才能時，世界上的其他人都會注意到的。
And it is not an “all or nothing” proposition either. Jay Cross, the founder of “Do-It-Yourself Degree” is putting together a list of universities based on the number of transfer credits they accept.
而且這不是一個“非此即彼”的事。“自助學位”的創始人Jay Cross正在組建一個清單，按照一所大學接受的可轉換學分數來給大學排序。
That means you can go to a real university, and get a real degree, but minimize the amount of time you have to spend learning in the classroom.
這意味着你可以去一所貨真價實的大學拿到一個貨真價實的學位，並能只在教室裏花盡量少的時間。
Look, I get it, maybe you don’t want to go to MIT or try to learn an MIT degree on your own just for fun, I get that.
我知道，可能你並不想去上MIT或者為了好玩而靠自己學完一個MIT學位所需的課程，我明白這一點。
But even if you decide to do your education the old fashion way, this still impacts you. The world is changing too fast to believe that learning stops once you get your diploma.
但是，即使你決定用老式的方法來接受教育，這依舊可以影響到你現在的世界變化得太快了，你不可能一拿到文憑就停止學習。
Being able to teach yourself complex skills and big ideas is going to be essential to stay , like it or not, most education in the future is going to be self-education.
自學複雜技巧和重大思潮的能力對於保持競爭力來説至關重要。所以，不管你喜歡與否，未來的教育將主要是自我教育。
Universities aren’t going away anytime soon, they will always offer things self-education will miss. They’re a great experience even if they’re sometimes an expensive one.
大學不會在短時間內消失，它們將一直提供一些自我教育不能提供的東西。而且上大學是個很棒的體驗，雖然有時候真的很貴。
But that said, I believe self-education is the future. If a person like me can learn an MIT degree in one quarter of the time and 1/100 of the financial cost, what’s to stop you from doing it too?Thank you.
不過，即便如此，我也相信自我教育才是未來的主流。如果我這樣一個人能夠只花1/4的時間和1/100的錢就學完一個MIT的學位，你們又怎麼會沒可能呢?謝謝大家。
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