The TED speaker series features “ideas worth spreading”. With over 1,400 to choose from, we've selected a few that are perfect for students.

    ⒈Larry Smith: Why you will fail to have a great career

    We humans may have an unfavorable habit of making excuses for ourselves or being too confident about ourselves. Accordingly, Larry Smith, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, tells us why most of us will fail to have a great career. Luckily, as he puts it, there is a way out—follow your heart, as long as it is good for your career.

    ⒉Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes

    Between dance team, volunteering and –oh, right—lectures, your life's crazy factor（因素）is about to go way up. In this entertaining and informative talk, Mindfulness, expert Andy Puddicombe teaches us how to be “more healthy, more mindful and less distracted” by taking just 10 minutes out of the day to be “more present”.

    ⒊Shane Koyczan: To this day…for the bullied（欺凌）and beautiful

    This talk is sure to stay with you. Shane Koyczan's “To This Day” is an affecting spoken-word poem about bullying and being different that gained over 10 million views on YouTube. In this talk, Koyczan gives a live reading of the poem, along with some stories about his background.

    ⒋Susan Cain: The power of introverts（性格内向者）

    Does a cup of tea and a good book sound like a perfect Friday night? In this personal talk, Susan Cain argues that introverts have talents and abilities. Our culture may value being outgoing, but the world needs all kinds.

    Bob was born in Cambridge. When he was in elementary school, he asked his mother to take him to parks in their community so he could collect empty soda cans to recycle. His mother agreed, as long as he saved part of the money he earned for college.

    Bob's mother remembers Bob as the most determined of her seven kids. Bob's hard work paid off. On Friday, he will become the first person in his family, originally from El Salvador, to graduate from college. And he's graduating with university honors.

    For his honors thesis（毕业论文）he researched unmanned solar-powered（太阳能）airplanes, which BYU students have been building and testing for about 10 years. Bob's study helps discover the best way to fly a solar-powered airplane so that it uses the least amount of power. The goal is to design and build an airplane that flies uncertainly. Bob's thesis helps lay the basis for this work.

    “My parents were always hard-working,” Bob said. “They often tell us hard work leads to success.” Bob's father taught him to read at the age of 3, and his mother is now a student at Utah Valley University in a way to becoming a dentist.

    Bob recognized he overcame some obstacles（障碍）to get where he is. For starters, English is his second language. He also faced stereotypes（模式化的形象）. Although Bob never doubted that he would be a college graduate, other people believed he wouldn't because he didn't come from a family of high income. There were other obstacles as well, but Bob viewed them all as opportunities.

    Bob's mother says she feels very happy and proud that her son is about to graduate with honors, and remembers the effort he's made to get there. “He has worked very hard. He started something, and now he has finished it,” Cathy says. “I have always told him, 'If this is your dream, then you can get it! Keep working hard and you can get it!'”

    Kathy Fletcher and David Simpson have a son named Santi. He had a friend who sometimes went to school hungry. So Santi invited him to occasionally eat and sleep at his house.

    That friend had a friend and that friend had a friend, and now when you go to dinner at Kathy and David's house on Thursday night there might be 15 to 20 teenagers gathering around the table, and later there will be groups of them crashing in the basement or in the few small bedrooms upstairs. The kids who show up at Kathy and David's have suffered the pains of modern poverty: homelessness, hunger, abuse.

    And yet by some miracle, hostile soil has produced beautiful flowers. Kids come from around the city. Spicy chicken and black rice are served. Cellphones are banned. The kids who call Kathy and David “Momma” and “Dad,” are polite and clear the dishes. Birthdays and graduations are celebrated. Songs are performed. Each meal we go around the table and everybody has to say something nobody else knows about them. Each meal the kids show their promise to care for one another.

    The adults in this community give the kids the chance to present their gifts. “At my first dinner, Edd read a poem that I first thought was from Langston Hughes, but it turned out to be his own. Kesari has a voice that somehow appeared from New Orleans jazz from the 1920s. Madeline and Thalya practice friendship as if it were the highest art form.”

    “They give us a gift — complete intolerance of social distance. When I first met Edd, I held out my hand to shake his. He looked at it and said, 'We hug here,' and we've been hugging since.”

    Bill Milliken, a veteran youth activist, is often asked which programs turn around kids' lives. “I still haven't seen one program change one kid's life,” he says. “What changes people is relationships. Somebody is willing to walk through the shadow of the valley of adolescence with them.” Souls are not saved in packs. Love is the necessary force.

    83-year-old Antonio Vicente has spent the last four decades of his life fighting against the current. As Brazilian landowners cut down rainforests to make room for profitable (盈利的) plantations and cattle grazing grounds, he struggled to bring the thick jungles of his childhood back to life.

    In 1973 Antonio took up the challenge of restoring the forest on a 31-hectare piece of land that had been destroyed for cattle grazing. Ironically enough, he bought the land in Brazil's Sao Paulo region, using credits（贷款）that the military government was giving out to promote deforestation(砍伐森林) and agricultural technology. But Antonio didn't use the money to promote the national agriculture but wanted to revive the forest.

    "You are stupid. Planting trees is a waste of land. You won't have income. If it's full of trees, you won't have room for cows or crops," Antonio's neighbors told him. But he knew the damage caused by deforestation was far greater than financial profit. Antonio had grown up on a rural farm, and watched his father and the other villagers cut down forests at the owners' orders, either for charcoal production or to clear land for grazing cattle. He had watched the ancient water sources dry up and people struggling to survive.

    With only some donkeys and a few hired workers Antonio brought back the forest to his land. What started out as a weekend hobby soon became a permanent way of life. Antonio often recalls spending days and nights in his young jungle, surrounded by rats and foxes, and eating banana for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

    As the forest grew, the water returned, and Antonio says that there are now over 20 water sources on his land that were no longer there when he bought it. Then the animals started making a home there. Today, the forest is alive with sounds of birds and insects living there, and more species are settling in every year.

    The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cooled uniform, stood at the table; his poor helpers were behind him; the gruel (稀粥) was served out; and after they spoke to God to give thanks, there was little time left to eat. The gruel disappeared immediately; the boys whispered each other, and encouraged Oliver to ask for more. Oliver was very hungry and decided to take a risk. He rose from the table; and went to the master, plate and spoon in hand, said:

"Please, sir, I want some more."

    ①

    The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He looked at Oliver in great surprise for some seconds, and nearly fell but for the support to the table. The helpers were frozen with wonder; the boys with fear.

"What!" said the master at last, in a confused voice.

"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."

    The master hit Oliver's head with the ladle; and screamed for Mr. Bumble.

    ②

    The board were sitting in plotting (密谋) something, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and spoke to the gentleman loudly in the high chair, said:

"Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!"

    ③

"For more!" said Mr. Limbkins. "Calm yourself, Bumble, and answer me clearly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted (配给) by the dietary?"

"He did, sir, "replied Bumble.

"That boy will be hung, " said the gentleman in white. "I know that boy will be hung."

    Nobody was against the gentleman's opinion. A heated discussion took place. Oliver was put in a cold, dark room and no boys were allowed to talk to him; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish (教区).In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

    ④

"I never was more convinced of anything in my life, "said the gentleman in white, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill next morning: "I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung."

A British woman who once weighed some 322 pounds said breaking a roller coaster seat during an amusement park outing was her motivation for working toward a healthier weight.

Four years ago, Danielle Wright, 27, went to the Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire, England, with her sister. She wanted to avoid roller coasters, fearing that she was too heavy for them. But she was convinced to give it a try and boarded one of the rides.

"Fitting in the seat was bad enough, but when it came to pulling down the safety bar, my stomach stopped it from working," she recalled. "One of the employees came over and had to put his foot against the ride and push the bar hard to make it click into place."

She was worried throughout the ride that “the bar was going to pop open and I was going to be thrown off the tracks". When the ride ended, the bar sprang up and made a huge noise. Shortly after, she heard an announcement over the loudspeaker saying the ride was temporarily closed due to a broken seat.

Though it was embarrassing, the incident presented a silver lining. "It's what I needed to motivate me to lose pounds," Danielle said. She totally changed her diet, cutting back on carbohydrate and replacing food like chocolate with healthier choices such as apples and yogurt. Meanwhile, she also began participating in workout classes.

In November 2016, Danielle found out she was pregnant. But as tempted as she was, she didn't allow herself to eat unhealthy food while pregnant and stuck to her new diet.

Now Danielle weighs some 140 pounds. "Being able to run and play with my little boy is, he best part of it all. I couldn't have asked for a better reward," she said.