The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture is filled with great lessons not just for teaching but for living life. He begins by explaining the three different areas, his childhood dreams, the dreams of others and lessons learned, as the topics he will discuss. Pausch had several dreams as a child. Floating in space, playing in the NFL, and being a Disney Imaginer were just a few of these dreams. These are by no means small dreams. But as Pausch explains, dreams are worth pursuing. Pausch states in this lecture, “If a brick wall is in front of you then you must work harder to achieve it because the brick walls only determine how badly you want to achieve this.”

Pausch discusses how important it has become to him to make the dreams of others a reality. This is when he develops the course at MIT for Building Virtual Worlds and the Master’s program for the Dream Fulfillment Factory and ALICE. Pausch’s teaching method is to basically put peers into groups and let their imaginations go wild. He is amazed by what his students come up with for different projects. He strongly believes that students at the Master’s level had all the book learning they needed. Now it was time to make something. Pausch focuses on grouping peers together, left brains with right brains, and watching what ideas would develop from the group. By the end of the project, peers graded each other on cooperation within the group. This is a great life lesson because life is filled with so many different types of people and we must teach students how to work within those many different personalities. However, fun is at the top of this man’s list. He truly believes in the “head fake” which is learning something hard while doing something fun. This was his professional legacy ALICE. Students learning computer programming while playing video games. This is an awesome concept.

Pausch also talks about lessons learned. He discusses how great his parents were while he was growing up. The mentors, students and friends he has had along the way and the important roles each has played in his life. From all these people, he has learned to listen, to work hard, to help others, and to look for the best in everyone. These are incredible life lessons that everyone needs to understand in leading a successful and fulfilling life. Pausch also explains the important of showing gratitude and he is definitely doing this through this lecture.

In the end of the lecture, Pausch explains that this last talk of his is a “head fake.” We believe that he is talking to us about childhood dreams and achieving these. That is not really the case. Pausch is really explaining how to live life. It is not really meant for this audience but for his children. This is an awesome gift he has given by sharing what he feels is so important as an educator of future generations.