Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Chlidhood Dreams

Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away on July 25, 2008. Before he passed he delivered one final lecture at CMU on September 18, 2007 before a packed McConomy Auditorium. His lecture was titled Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.

His lecture covered three basic points the first was Childhood Dreams, second was Enabling the Dreams of Others and finally Lessons Learned. His first topic Childhood dreams he discusses what his dreams consisted of like experiencing zero gravity, playing football in the NFL and Disney Imagineering. He was able to achieve all the dreams he had listed for himself through some creative means and determination. However he never actually got to play professional football but, the lessons he learned from training ended up being more valuable. He called indirect learning a “head fake”. Basically it's when you learn one thing in the process of learning something else.

Second he discussed enabling the dreams of others. His family sponsors a dormitory over in Vietnam where 30 students are now able to attend school. One important point he brought up he was discussing a new course he was teaching that enrolled 50students from various departments the set up was every two weeks they would produce an assignment with three classmates and after that project was finished they would work with a new team on the next project. When the first project was finished he was blown away with the quality of his students work but instead of telling them how great they did with exceeding his expectations he suggested they try harder the next time. In turn that raised the standards for their potential. I personally would never take that approach with my students before however, I will now.

Finally he discussed the lessons he had learned. He gave his thoughts on “brick walls” when you’re tiring to achieve your goals and you run into a brick wall. That should be incentive for you to try harder. He also said that they are there to weed out the people who aren’t serious. I thought that was pretty clever. And something I will pass on to my students. There is always a good and bad way to say a negative thought so think before you speak negatively to your students what you say may impact their life.

In conclusion Randy Pausch was a remarkable man loved by his family and his campus. He devoted his life to helping and teaching others and had fun while doing it. He has definitely impacted my life and I only listened to an hour of what he had to say I can only imagine the incredible things his students learned from him everyday. I want to express my condolences to his family and his campus the world has lost an extraordinary man.