The Last Lecture

MayorBob.

Posted to Etcetera on Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 02:51:43 AM EST (promoted by 1fastdog). RSS.

Randy Pausch is a man with everything to live for.  But at 46 years of age Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is dying of cancer.  You might expect Pausch to be bitter, morose or in denial about things.  You would be wrong, as Pausch compellingly proves in what many people are calling the lecture of a lifetime.

Pausch's lecture before an audience of 400 Carnegie Mellon students and faculty was delivered last week.  This type of lecture is becoming popular in universities around the US and it's based on the premise it would be the one last lecture a teacher could give before he or she dies.  This performance hit the objective because, after the lecture was finished, Pausch left Carnegie Mellon and teaching for good.  The lecture itself (over an hour) began with a round of applause from the audience.  Pausch told them "make me earn it" and began his lecture titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams."  In matter of fact fashion he mentions he has pancreatic cancer with no more than two to five months left.  But with death hovering in front of him, he didn't want tears, he wanted ears.

He began a lecture with three basic parts: his childhood dreams; how he enabled the dreams of others; and how the audience could achieve their dreams or help enable the dreams of others.  His childhood dreams were realized in some fashion.  He did get to experience zero gravity aboard the "Vomit Comet."  He didn't get to play pro football but picked up valuable life lessons from a couple of football coaches, not the least of which were the value of practice and the value of critics in your life.  He couldn't be Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, but he did get to meet Shatner who visited his labs at Carnegie Mellon in connection with researching a book.  According to Pausch "it's really cool to meet your childhood heroes but it's even cooler when they come to you to see what sort of cool things you're working on."  He did get to contribute a piece for the World Book encyclopedia.  And he did become a Disney Imagineer and anyone who's visited DisneyWorld can benefit from his vision and effort.  One of the things Pausch will be leaving behind is Alice, a software project that allows people to easily create 3D images.  As Pausch said in the lecture:

"Like Moses, I get to see the Promised Land, but I don't get to step foot in it.  That's OK. I will live on in Alice."

But Pausch doesn't say that his life was one success after another; he had his share of rejection and he showed the rejection letters during his lecture.  But, he also observed of those times when he did hit a brick wall in life, "brick walls aren't there to keep us out" they're "there to show us how badly we want things."  He ended the lecture simply by saying "this was for my kids."