当你的竞争者的分数与你不相伯仲的时候，一封大牛的推荐信可能就会成为你的倚天剑屠龙刀，助你披荆斩棘，拿到好的offer。来自耶鲁JD Joel的翻译文章，来看看他对如何拿到大牛推荐信的心得吧。
In this article, we discuss why getting great letters of recommendation depends on how you perceive and interact with your professors. Specifically, the kinds of student behaviors that make professors eager to help students.
在这篇文章里，我们将讨论为什么能否得到好的推荐信取决于你和教授之间的互动和沟通。详细来讲，就是学生怎么做才能让教授想要去帮助他们。
It’s easy to forget that your professors are people when you sit in front of them during a lecture. As with any authority figure, they seem remote because of the role the play in your life. In this case, they have control over your time (from class schedules, to exams and papers), and the all-important ability to judge effort and intellect, producing a grade. Add to this the fact that many professors have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of a specific and oftentimes narrow topic that may only interest you as a means to a different end, and the gap can seem unbridgeable. There you are, just looking to perform well and move on. There they are, with the power to aid you or stand in your way, but with obscure objectives. Not only can this cause stress while working towards an individual grade, but it can detrimentally affect the process of acquiring powerful recommendation letters for future study.
当你上课坐在教授对面听他讲课时，你很容易就忘记其实教授和你一样，也是一个普通的人。跟其他的权威角色一样，作为教授的他们好像离我们很遥远。他们可以掌控你的时间(从课程表到考试，论文)，和其他所有可以衡量你所付出的努力和智慧的标准，也就是给成绩。除此之外，因为很多教授都把自己的一生奉献给了一门很细，范围很窄的学科，而你只把这些学科当做你到达超后重点的过渡，你和教授之间就产生了不可逾越的鸿沟。当你坐在那里时，你想的只是表现得好一点，然后就可以继续下一门课的学习。而当他们站在那里时，虽然他们拥有帮助你或者阻挡你前进的能力，他们却有着不再清晰的目标。这种差别不仅能够在你为这门课努力时为你增添更多的压力，还会严重影响你取得推荐信的过程。
The truth, however, is that most professors teach for multiple reasons: partly because of a profound passion for the material under review, partly because they are inspired by the intellectual audacity of intelligent youth, and partly because they genuinely believe that a good education aids the development of an individual – whatever his or her ultimate career goals. Whether you are taking a class on Shakespeare, an astronomy survey, an introduction to economics, or learning a new language, chances are your professor cares as much about how your intellectual diligence will generally inform your future character as they will care about your investment in the particular topic at hand. They care about this because they themselves benefited from similar exposure to a breadth of ideas when they were starting out in their careers.
可事实真相是，大多数教授是为了多种原因才教学：一部分是因为他们深深热爱这个专业，一部分是因为他们被年轻人对学术的大胆创新所启迪，还有一部分是因为他们真诚地相信，好的教育可以帮助一个人的终身发展——不管他/她的超终职业目标是什么。不管你是在上莎士比亚的鉴赏课，做天文学调查，学习经济入门课，还是了解一个新的语言，你的教授都会像关心你在这门课上的投入一样关心你个人的勤奋会怎么引领你走向未来社会角色。他们关心这个的原因就是因为在他们的职业开端，他们自己也被这种观点深深影响了。
So, despite the illusion of distance and authority built into the system, the best way to get a convincing recommendation from a professor is to have the confidence to establish a personal relationship with them. This relationship can be based on enthusiasm for learning without too much concern over your ultimate interest in the material. Go to office hours. Talk about gratuitously interesting thoughts inspired in part by a lecture. Turn in that extra credit assignment. Ask questions in class. Go to the department-sponsored lectures and chat with your professors afterward. Your professors will be grateful for your participation, they will be fired up by your engagement, they will be interested in learning about you as a person, and perhaps intrigued to learn from your unique perspective as a non-specialist looking in at a field they have been a part of for decades.
所以，除了距离感和权威性这些假象，得到一封有价值的推荐信的超好办法就是拥有与他们建立个人联系的信心。这种个人关系可以建立在你对这门课超初的激情的基础上，无关它与你超终目标的联系。经常去找老师聊聊。谈一谈你在课上受到的真正启迪。完成额外学分的作业。常提问题。去听听本系的讲座，结束后和你的教授聊一聊。你的教授会对你的积极参与感到很欣慰。他们会被你的积极主动深深打动，他们会想要更深入地去了解你，他们也可能对你，这个非专家对他们已经研究了几十年的学科的想法感到好奇。
These are the relationships that produce outstanding letters of recommendation. These relationships encourage the professor to invest in your future on your terms, to spend the extra time it takes to draft a compelling letter, to include the details that make it obvious that he or she is not writing a stock letter but truly took the time to get to know you. These are the relationships that result in a letter professing genuine regret at the loss of your contribution to the school and the department, which only tantalizes future institutions.
这些就是能够提供优秀推荐信的“个人联系”。这些关系促使教授去为你的未来发展使一把劲儿，去花额外的时间写有说服力的推荐信，去通过包括细节展现他/她不只是在写一封生硬的推荐信，而是真的花时间了解了你这个人。这些个人联系就会导致信中对于学校和部门失去你的诚挚遗憾，而这也会让未来的雇人单位感到紧张。
And, with any luck, these are the relationships that also become warm mentoring friendships that you can continue to draw on as you professionalize and develop over the course of your career and your life.
而且，如果你运气好一点的话， 这些关系还能超终发展成为师徒友谊，会帮助你未来的职业规划，发展和人生。
