在校大學生究竟該不該自主創業?

It's little more than a decade since Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard at the age of 19 to launch Facebook. The social network has made him the fourth-richest man in America and a hero to any aspiring college entrepreneur.

十多年前，19歲的馬克扎克伯格從哈佛輟學，創辦了Facebook。該社交網絡使他榮登全美富人榜單第四名，同時也成爲所有雄心勃勃的大學生企業家心目中的英雄。

Of course Zuckerberg was already something of a prodigy when he started his global empire. But for those with more modest abilities, there are now thousands of schools across the country offering courses in entrepreneurship.

當然了，扎克伯格在剛開始打造他的全球帝國時已經是一個傳奇人物了。然而對於那些沒那麼才華橫溢的人而言，目前全國有成百上千家學校開設了創業課程。

The days seem long gone when students sought skills that would secure them a job for life working for somebody else.

學生學習一技之長，然後找一份工作終身爲別人打工的時代已經一去不復返了。

"There's been a massive shift," says Derrick Maggard, director of the Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Virginia Tech. "Most of these students grew up during the great recession and saw their parents, maybe their grandparents or an aunt or uncle struggle and get laid off by large companies. They're almost fearful to go into the corporate world. They say, I don't want that to happen to me - I want to do my own thing and control my destiny."

“現在發生了翻天覆地的變化。”弗吉尼亞理工學院尖端系統創新創業中心的德里克·馬加德主任說。“這些學生大部分在經濟大蕭條時代長大，親眼目睹了他們父母或者祖父母、叔叔阿姨努力工作，最後卻被大公司解僱。他們非常害怕進入公司工作。他們說不想類似的事情發生在自己身上-他們想做自己的事情，掌握自己的命運。”

He says the most important characteristics for a successful entrepreneur are the ability to handle ambiguity and the skills to bring an idea to fruition.

馬加德認爲，對一個成功的企業家而言，最重要的品質就是有能力處理模棱兩可的事情，並且擅於將想法變成先現實。

Mark Zuckerberg is now worth more than $52bn, adding $18bn to his fortune in the last year alone according to Forbes. And while he represents a tiny percentage of entrepreneurs, many other successful companies have been started in a college dorm room.

據福布斯數據顯示，馬克扎克伯格目前身價520億美元，僅去年一年身價就漲了180億美元。儘管他只代表了很少一部分的企業家，但也有其他很多成功的公司都是在大學宿舍中成立的。

Dyn was co-founded in 2001 by Jeremy Hitchcock, studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts. He developed a way to optimise the flow of data between online companies and their users to improve internet performance. Dyn, based in Manchester, New Hampshire, now employs 400 people and boasts clients such as Twitter and Etsy.

Dyn公司於2001年由馬薩諸塞州伍斯特理工學院的傑里米·希契科克創辦。他發明了一種方法能夠優化網上公司和其用戶之間的數據流，從而提高網絡性能。Dyn總部設在曼徹斯特新罕布什爾，現在有400名員工，並且以擁有Twitter和Etsy之類的客戶資源爲榮。

"I'd give the same advice to any university student," says Hitchcock. "Go start a company or be part of something where you're creating or building, because you're at a time in life when you have that freedom of exploration. And do something that's crazy, that's non-traditional."

“我會給所有大學生同樣的建議。”希契科克說。“創辦一家公司，或者成爲你創辦或搭建的事物的一部分，因爲你處在人生一個有探索自由的階段。做一些瘋狂的、打破傳統的事情。”

"If you are a student entrepreneur and you have an idea with a time limit on getting it to market, I would encourage you to take a leave of absence and give it a go. But those are rare," Maggard says. "Work on it while you're in school. Develop the idea and continue to do customer research. Then when the time is right and you are ready to move forward, go for it."

“如果你是個大學生企業家，你有個想法在規定期限內要把它推向市場，我建議你休學並把想法付諸實踐。然而這是很少見的。”馬加德說。“在學校裏繼續做研究。完善你的想法並繼續開展客戶研究。當時機到來而你也做好了前進的準備時，儘管努力爭取吧。”

29-year-old Mehr Pastakia already had a degree in horticulture but started her rooftop garden company while studying at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Baltimore.

29歲的梅爾·帕斯塔基已經取得了園藝學學位，但她在巴爾的摩約翰霍普金斯大學商學院就讀時創辦了自己的屋頂花園公司。

"I just wanted to learn what everybody else seemed to know about business," she says. "I had a few really great classes and really great classmates that made it totally worth it for me."

“我只是想學習那些似乎人人都知道的商業知識。”她說。“我上了幾堂非常棒的課程，認識了一些非常棒的同學，這讓我覺得非常值得。”

One of the most important lessons was how to manage conflict and develop self-knowledge as a leader, she says. She was also able to meet a potential investor who focuses on backing women-owned companies.

她表示，最重要的一課就是如何處理衝突和發展作爲領導人的自我認知。她還認識了一位潛在投資人，專門資助女企業家的公司。

"Female entrepreneurs are on the rise," says Maggard. "But one challenge they do face is equal access to capital. Venture capitalists are known to invest less in female led start-ups."

“女企業家的人數逐漸增多。”馬加德主任說道。“然而她們的確面臨着一項挑戰：得到同等資金的機會。衆所周知，風投家對女性創辦的新興公司投資相對較少。”

"Research shows that women are more risk averse than men, and this can be paraded around as unfavourable," says Kathy Korman Frey, entrepreneur in residence at George Washington University and founder of Hot Mommas Project, the world's largest online library of female entrepreneur case studies.

“研究表明，女性比男性更加容易規避風險，而這一點被很多人認爲是不利條件。”喬治華盛頓大學入駐企業家凱西科曼弗雷說。她是全球最大的女企業家案例研究網上圖書館“辣媽計劃”創始人。

But, she says, attitudes towards women entrepreneurs are changing. "If I know my investment is safer with a person who is going to consider all the options and then make a move, that's a (good) investment strategy."

然而，她表示，人們對女企業家的態度在逐漸發生改變。“如果我知道我的投資放在一個能夠考慮所有選擇最終才做出決定的人那裏會更安全，那這是一個好的投資策略。”