Follow your passion in college. Take courses you think you will enjoy. Don’t be trapped in what others think or say. Steve Jobs says when you are in college, your passion will create many dots, and later in your life you will connect them. In his great speech given at Stanford commencement , he gave the great example where he took calligraphy, and a decade later, it became the basis of the beautiful Macintosh fonts, which later ignited desktop publishing, and brought wonderful tools like Microsoft Word to our lives. His expedition into calligraphy was a dot, and the Macintosh became the connecting line. So don’t worry too much about what job you will have, and don’t be too utilitarian, and if you like Japanese or Korean, go for it, even if your dad thinks “it’s not useful.” ：） Enjoy picking your dots, and be assured one day you will find your calling, and connect a beautiful curve through the dots.

在大学里你要追随自己的***和爱好，选你感爱好的课程，不要困扰于别人怎么说或怎么想。史蒂夫?乔布斯曾经说过，在大学里你的热情会创造出很多点，在你随后的生命中你会把这些点串联起来。在他著名的斯坦福毕业仪式演讲中，他举了一个很好的例子：他在大学里修了看似毫无用处的书法，而十年后，这成了苹果Macintosh里漂亮字库的基础，而由于Macintosh有这么好的字库，才带来了桌面出版和今天的办公软件（例如微软Office）。他对书法的探索就是一个点，而苹果Macintosh把多个点联结成了一条线。所以不要太担心将来你要做什么样的工作，也不要太急功近利。假如你喜欢日语或韩语，就往学吧，尽管你的爸爸曾说过那没什么用：）尽兴地选择你的点吧，要有信念有一天机缘来临时，你会找到自己的人生使命，画出一条美丽的曲线。

Do your best in classes, but don’t let pressure get to you. Your mother and I have no expectations for your grades. If you graduate and learn something in your four years, we would feel happy. Your Columbia degree will take you far, even if you don’t graduate with honors. So please don’t give yourself pressure。During your last few months in high school, you were so happy because there was little pressure and college applications are finished. But in the past few weeks, we saw you are beginning to worry (did you know you bite your nails when you are nervous?). Please don’t be worried. The only thing that matters is that you learned. The only metric you should use is that you tried. Grades are just silly letters that give the vain people something to brag, and the lazy people something to fear. You are too good to be either.

在作业上要尽力，但不要给自己太多压力。你妈妈和我在成绩上对你没什么要求，只要你能顺利毕业并在这四年里学到了些东西，我们就会很兴奋了。即便你毕业时没有获得优异的成绩，你的哥伦比亚学位也将带你走得很远。所以别给自己压力。在你高中生活的最后几个月，由于压力比较小，大学申请也结束了，你过得很开心，但是在最近的几个星期，你似乎开始紧张起来。（你留意到你紧张时会咬指甲吗？）千万别担心，最重要的是你有在学习，你需要的唯一衡量是你的努力程度。成绩只不过是虚荣的人用以吹嘘和慵懒的人所恐惧的无聊数字而已，而你既不虚荣也不慵懒。

Most importantly, make friends and be happy. College friends are often the best in life, because during college you are closer to them physically than to your family. Also, going through independence and adulthood is a natural bonding experience. Pick a few friends and become really close to them – pick the ones who are genuine and sincere to you. Don’t worry about their hobbies, grades, looks, or even personalities. You have developed some real friendships in high school in your last two years, so trust your instinct, and make new friends. You are a genuine and sincere person – anyone would enjoy being your friend, so be confident, outgoing, and pro-active. If you think you like someone, tell her. You have very little to lose. Give people the benefit of the doubt; don’t stereotype and be forgiving. People are not perfect, so as long as they are genuine and sincere, trust them and be good to them. They will give back. This is my secret of success – that I am genuine with people and trust them (unless they do something to lose my trust). Some people tell me that occasionally I would be taken advantage of. They are right, but I can tell you that that loss is nothing compared to what I gained. In my last 18 years leading people, I have realized that only one thing matters – to gain the trust and respect of others, and to do so, you need to trust and respect others first. Whether it is for management, work, or friendship, this is something you should ponder.