So how can you possibly hope to replicate something which is such a multifaceted experience?

　　你怎么可能用别的东西替代一个这么多维的体验呢?

　　So I like to think college is a lot like eating at a five star restaurant. You’re never paying for just the food. You get the wait staff, elegant decor, the fancy french wines.

　　我觉得上大学很像是去米其林五星餐厅吃饭。你绝不是仅仅为了食物才付那么多钱，你的消费还涵盖服务员的服务、雅致的装潢、高档的法国葡萄酒。

　　You’re paying for a complex and multifaceted experience.

　　你买的是一个复杂而多维的体验。

　　And the same is true at college. You get networking with your intellectual peers, research opportunities and credentials from elite institutions.

　　这对于上大学来说也是一样的。你可以和那些聪明的同辈互动，你能从这些精英机构得到研究机会以及证书。

　　And like the fancy restaurant you get a big bill at the end.

　　而且，和高档餐厅一样，你最终会拿到一份老贵的账单。

　　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.

　　而事情是这样的，有时候这个系统的确有用，但就像你不是每次饿的时候都想去一家五星餐厅，你可能也不是每次想学点什么的时候都要回学校。

　　I didn’t want the five course meal. I wanted my education “a la carte”.

　　我不想要一顿五道菜的全餐，我希望我的教育是“按需点菜”。

　　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，对我来说最重要的，一个是理解计算机科学里的主要概念，比如算法、人工智能、加密以及互联网;另一个是将这些概念运用到电脑程序里。

　　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.

　　于是我决定要让这次大学经历简单点。我的目标是通过麻省理工学生需要通过的考试，并实际动手编程。

　　I admit it is a simplification. It omits a lot of the MIT experiences.

　　我承认这的确是个简化版本。它把去麻省理工上学的大部分体验都剔除了。

　　But for what I wanted to get out of it, it was a pretty good simplification.

　　但对于我想从中获取的东西来说，这是个非常好的简化版本。

　　And what mattered more, it was a simplification that worked.

　　而更重要的是，这个简化版本的确有用。

　　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.

　　情况是这样的，我当时成功地建立起一个包含33门课的课表，这和一个麻省理工学生要用到的课表几乎是一模一样的，只有一两门课有点小区别。

　　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 $2000.

　　而我建立这个课表时用的全是麻省理工放在网上的免费资源。唯一的花费就是买了些教科书，这意味着这个项目对我来说还不超过2000美元。

　　Okay. So I have my goal and now I have the material.

　　好，现在我既有目标也有资源了。

　　Now for the hard part: actually learning MIT classes.

　　接下来是困难的部分：真的学完这些课程。

　　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.

　　我不是在闹着玩，麻省理工是个很难毕业的学校，即使对聪明的学生来说这里也是臭名昭著地难，而且，我还得不到教员、教授和同学的帮助。

　　So in theory the project’s doable but would it just be too difficult in practice?

　　所以，理论上来讲这个项目是可行的，但它是不是因为太难而无法完成呢?

　　And when I told my friends about this, that I was planning on doing an MIT degree on my own, they reinforced those doubts.

　　而当我把这告诉我的朋友的时候，当我告诉他们我准备自学一整个麻省理工学位的时候，他们强化了那些疑虑。

　　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.

　　他们告诉我，他们根本无法想象光凭自己就学完一个麻省理工的学位，没有教职人员的支援和引导这实在是太难了。

　　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.

　　不过他们说的这最后一点在我看来并不正确，因为当我上大学的时候，我也去过这样的讲座，一个教授在里面会对着300个学生讲课。