Blog Post 7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture



This video shows a lecture given by Randy Pausch; this lecture would be his last at the university. Pausch was a professor of computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given "3 to six months of good health". He gave this lecture on September 18, 2007 and died from the cancer on July 25, 2008.
Pausch begins by talking about his childhood dreams. They were various off the wall things, like most of our childhood dreams are, like: being Captian Kirk, playing in the NFL, becoming a Disney Imagineer, and being in zero gravity. With exception of becoming a NFL player (he did play in high school) and changing "being Captain Kirk" to "meeting Captain Kirk" , he fulfilled them all. One thing he constantly talks about throughout the lecture are brickwalls. He says that whenever you're on your way to achieving a dream you're going to hit brickwalls, but you have to keep pressing. Brickwalls show our dedication.
He talks about one student in particular who he helped achieve a childhood dream. The student wanted to work on Star War films and he was able to see that dream fulfilled. He wanted to be able to do that on a larger scale so he created a class on virtual worlds. Whenever he would address his students about projects he would tell them, "That was pretty good, but I know you can do better." That drove the students and a campus-wide phenomenon was created. But that was just one course, so he decided to take it to a bigger scale and co-created the Entertainment Technology Center. This was a master level program where students completed two years of project-based courses. There were no books! Pausch stated that they had spent enough time with book work. He was big on working in groups and teaching students to be self reflective.
He gives great advice on learning from bosses, learning from students, having fun, helping others, and how to get people to help you. He encourages you to get a feedback loop, someone who will tell you your faults and listen to them,show gratitude when it should be given, work harder, and find the good in everyone. At the end he says that this talk was not about achieving your childhood dreams, but leading your life. This was an amazing man who left an amazing legacy. We should follow his advice.