VOA慢速英语2017--学生帮忙应对美国防务难题

Stanford University in California offers a class called “Hacking 2 for Defense 3.”

斯坦福大学开设了100多门创业相关课程。但是在“黑客防御”课程中，学生们可以学习如何解决美国各部队和国防部门正面临的问题。

“They want to work on some of the toughest real world problems they are ever gonna see.With all due respect to Google and Dropbox and Facebook and Twitter,which they all have opportunities here in the valley to go work for as graduates here,these are some problems that make those look trivial by comparison.”

“他们想要处理一些他们将会遇到的最棘手的现实世界的问题。恕我直言，拿Google、 Dropbox、Facebook以及 Twitter这些知名的硅谷公司来说，学生们毕业后都有机会去那里工作，相比那些真正难处理的问题，这些公司的问题显得就微不足道了。”

Like these fellow teachers, they launched the 10-week course last year to bring a model for creating start-ups to military defense problems.Now the course is offered at 8 other universities. Student projects include helping 4 soldiers in the field deal with mapping technology,creating sensors 5 to help soldiers with injuries and grappling with cyber security.

这些老师去年推出了为期十周的课程，为创办解决军事防务问题的企业树立了榜样。现在，另有8所大学也提供这一课程。学生接手的项目包括帮助战地的士兵运用地图绘制技术，制作传感器帮助受伤士兵，以及应对网络安全问题。

“So I’m working for USTRANSCOM,which manages transportation in the United States to better improve cyber security and the country’s sea ports.”Benji Nguyen is a graduate student of public policy, a native of Austin, Texas, Nguyen’s parents are from Vietnam.“Yeah, that’s my growth actually, I have no impressions there.When I’m here, you know, start reading textbook and doing as promised.When I told them I was working with the military to help solve a problem, they were really excited about it actually.”

“所以我正在为美国运输司令部（USTRANSCOM）工作，其职能是管理美国全领域的运输，以更好地提高网络安全，为国家海港提供交通支持。”Benji Nguyen是一名公共政策专业的研究生，来自德克萨斯州奥斯汀。Nguyen的父母来自越南。“是的，这就是我的成长背景。我对那里没有印象。我来到这里的时候，你知道，开始阅读教科书，并遵从自己之前的承诺做一些事情。当我告诉他们，我正在和军方合作解决一个问题，他们真的很兴奋。”

For U.S. students, the Hacking for Defense class gives them a unique chance to serve their country.They are expected to get out of the classroom and enter the field,learning the day-to-day situations for soldiers or others in national defense.But the class’s also attracted a surprising number of foreign-born students.

对于美国学生来说，“黑客防御”课程给他们提供了独特的机会，来为国家服务。他们需要走出教室进行实地体验，了解士兵或其他国防部门人员的日常情况。但这一课程也吸引了大批外籍学生。

“We take the military intelligence problems and we scrub them down, so anybody could work on them.But I was surprised by the number of foreign students from Singapore and China,from India who were just interested in learning that same methodology and could take it home from wherever they are.”

“我们会接手有关军事情报的问题，然后将问题进行彻底分析，所以任何人都可以进行研究并寻找解决方案。但是，让我惊讶的是，许多来自新加坡、中国以及印度的的外国学生，他们也对学习同样的方法很感兴趣，并且非常希望能将这种方法带回自己的祖国。”

Some students go on to create companies or go work for the agency they met in the class.For some, Buvana Dayanandan they are looking for work that is meaningful.“We’re working on helping veterans that have experienced some polytrauma and figuring out how technology can increase the quality of life and independence for a longer period of time.”

有些学生继续创办公司，也有一些将供职于课程学习中接触过的机构。而对于另外一些人，例如Buvana Dayananda，他们想寻找一份有意义的工作。“我们正在帮助那些经历过某种多发性创伤的退伍军人，也在探索如何利用科技提高生活质量以及更长时间内的独立能力。”

The students in this class learn they have to first understand a problem before coming up with the right solution.It is a set of skills they can use in whatever they do next.

参加这一课程的学生们明白，他们必须首先真正理解一个问题，然后才能找到正确的解决方案。无论他们今后做什么事情，都可以应用这套技能。

Words in This Story

hack 1 – v. to secretly get access to the files on a computer or network in order to get information, cause damage, etc.

cyber – adj. related to computers

USTRANSCOM – n. United States Transportation Command, a military unit

scrub – v. informal reduce to a simpler form

polytrauma – n. a medical term describing the condition of a person who has been subjected to multiple traumatic injuries