Randy Pausch'sLast Lecture

Randy Pausch was born in the 1960s and died of Pancreatic Cancer. As a child he had six childhood dreams. These dreams were being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, meeting Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, and being a Disney imagineer. It is very rare for someone to actually achieve their childhood dreams, however Randy Pausch actually achieved all of his childhood dreams. However, he had to go through a few obstacles to achieve these goals. He says"Brick walls are there for a reason:they let us prove how badly we want things." I think this is a great statement because we never know how badly we want something until we see how hard we work to accomplish it.

Randy achieve his first goal: being in zero gravy. He achieved this when he was a college professor and his students won a trip to ride the "vomit commit". The vomit commit allows you to see what it feels like to be in zero gravity for 25 seconds. It took overcoming an obstacle to get to be in zero gravity, but Randy did whatever it took to achieve it. His second goal was playing in the NFL. He never actually played in the NFL, but he did play football for a man that went by Coach Graham. This coach showed up to their first practice with no football because he believed if they practiced without them they would understand the fundamentals of football. During practice coach Graham was hard on Randy. However, the assistant coach told Randy "to be glad he is being hard on him because that means he has not given up on you." Randy says that critics are the ones who care and love you.

Randy graduated from Carnegie Mellon with his PHD. He try to use his PHD to achieve his goal of being a Disney imagineer. However, it did not work and they sent him letter declining him. Then one day when he was giving a lecture on virtual reality he saw Jon Snoody. He went to lunch with him and asked him if he could possibly work with him on their next project. Jon Snoody said it would be difficult but they would work it out. After approving it with his dean, Randy worked with Jon Snoody and the Disney team for six months on their project.

Randy Pausch had a class called Building Virtual Worlds. It had 50 students from all departments of the university. They had two weeks to design their project , which meant they would have five projects for the semester. After the first project, his students did so well that they had a campus wide exhibition. The students bonded throughout this exhibition and a ton of people came to watch it. It was a success. Randy then was granted his own department in the university. He has no dean to report to and he had a project based curriculum. He made the Dream Fulfillment Factory while having his own department. It involved artist and technologists. After going through it the student would receive a two year professional degree.

Randy then taught about lessons learned and said that the only way to achieve your childhood dreams depended on your parents, mentors, and students. I loved listening to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. He made some very valid points about achieving childhood dreams. He has accomplished so much and has impacted so many peoples lives.