2001年1月英语四级 - 阅读理解B

Engineering students are supposed to be examples of practicality and rationality, but when it comes to my college education I am an idealist and a fool. In high school I wanted to be an electrical engineer and, of course, any sensible student with my aims would have chosen a college with a large engineering department, famous reputation and lots of good labs and research equipment. But that’s not what I did.
工科学生应该是实用性和理性的典范，但当谈到我的大学教育时，我是一个理想主义者，也是一个傻瓜。在高中时，我想成为一名电气工程师，当然，任何有我目标的明智学生都会选择一所拥有大型工程系、拥有大量良好实验室和研究设备的著名大学，但我不是这样。

I chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts university that doesn’t even offer a major in electrical engineering. Obviously, this was not a practical choice; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a broad education that would provide me with flexibility and a value system to guide me in my career. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my vision by interacting with people who weren’t studying science or engineering. My parents, teachers and other adults praised me for such a sensible choice. They told me I was wise and mature beyond my 18 years, and I believed them.
我选择在一所小型文科学校学习工程学，这所大学甚至不提供电气工程专业。显然，这不是一个切实可行的选择；我来这里是为了更高尚的理由。我想要一个广泛的教育，这将给我的职业生涯提供灵活性和价值体系指导。我想通过与不学习科学或工程的人互动来扩大视野。我的父母、老师和其他成年人都称赞我做出了如此明智的选择。他们告诉我，在我18岁之后，我是聪明和成熟的，我相信他们。

I headed off to college sure I was going to have an advantage over those students who went to big engineering “factories”where they didn’t care if you have values or were flexible. I was going to be a complete engineer: technical genius and sensitive humanist all in one.
我去了大学，确信我会比那些去大型工程“工厂”的学生更有优势，在那里他们不在乎你的价值观或灵活性。我将成为一名完美的工程师：集技术天才和敏感的人文主义者为一身。

Now I’m not so sure. Somewhere along the way my noble ideals crashed into reality, as all noble ideals eventually do. After three years of struggling to balance math, physics and engineering courses with liberal-arts courses, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering students try to reconcile engineering with liberal-arts courses in college.
现在我不太确定。在这一过程中，我的崇高理想在某一刻破灭了，就像所有崇高理想最终都会破灭一样。经过三年的努力，我在数学、物理、工程课程与文科课程之间取得了平衡，我了解到，在大学里，很少有工科学生试图将工程与文科课程相调和，这是有原因的。

The reality that has blocked my path to become the typical successful student is that engineering and the liberal arts simply don’t’ mix as easily as I assumed in high school. Individually they shape a person in very different ways; together they threaten to confuse. The struggle to reconcile the two fields of study is difficult.
阻碍我成为典型成功学生的现实是，工程和文科并不像我高中时想象的那样容易混合。就个人而言，他们以非常不同的方式塑造一个人；它们加在一起可能会混淆。调和这两个研究领域的斗争是困难的。