Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Randy Pausch's lecture video was amazing and very inspiring, but also a little sad. Sad in the sense that, Mr. Pausch’s tell the audience that this will be his last lecture; he has cancer and probably will only live one more year. He talked about his childhood dreams and how important they are. He says they are imaginative and far-fetched, but tells how he achieved these dreams throughout his life and how these experiences have helped him learn and gain many good experiences. His dreams framed how he became so successful. One example he give is from his high school years. When he was young, he always loved football. His coaches taught him life lessons, such as to never give up and always know that someone may criticize you. They also taught him about the importance of enthusiasm and that hard work is what people need to succeed. He says as teachers, we have to encourage students to have dreams and work hard to accomplish them. He points out that with every goal comes a challenge, but the challenges are not there to stop or discourage us, they are there to let us prove we want our dreams to come true and how hard we are willing to work for what we want.


In the next part of his speech, he begins by asking, "How can I enable the dreams of others?" He tells of when he finally made the move to Carnegie Mellon University and how he taught a course where students worked groups and made a type of virtual reality. He says he was blown away by the quality of the students' work, but he always pushed them farther. Their work became so good that they had presentations where people from all over the university could attend and see the final product. It is clear that Mr. Pausch has a passion for teaching. I can tell he knows how to keep students motivated to learn. You have to make lessons and learning fun to get kids motivated and actually do a task.


Next, Mr. Pausch talks about how he made the Dream Fulfillment Factory, which is where the drama department and the computer science departments would collaborate on projects. Graduating from this program would give a student a Masters of Entertainment Technology degree. Mr. Pausch and his co-director, Don Marinelli, had complete freedom to do whatever they wanted. This program became so successful that students were actually guaranteed a job if they graduated. No other college in the world does this. CMU has even expanded the ETC program to Australia and Singapore. This led to Randy designing Alice. A program in which students learn to program. However, they think they are just making movies and games. This makes the learning experience more fun and interactive.


Lastly, Mr. Pausch talks about lessons learned. He places great emphasis on the influence of parents, peers and mentors as great source for learning lessons. He tells a story about how his mom and dad truly inspired him. His dad fought in World War II and even won the Bronze Star for his bravery. His mom was always there for him and always gave him the best advice. It’s not hard to see why Mr. Pausch turned out to be so successful with great, loving, supportive parents like his. After that he talks about his lifelong mentor, Andy Van Dam. Mr. Van Dam was the one who actually convinced him to go to graduate school and become a professor. He then proposed the question, "How do you get others to help you?" His answer was rather simple - tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you mess up, and focus on others instead of yourself. I agree 100%. He ends by giving many valuable lessons, the last which spoke to me personally, "Lead a good life. If you are good throughout your life, the dreams will come to you."


I truly believe that Mr. Pausch is a very inspiring man. Anyone and everyone can learn lot of valuable lessons from him. I hate that he has passed away because I'm know he would have went on to accomplish even greater things in his life. I would have also loved to have met him.