Blog Assignment #7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture


This video featured the last lecture of Randy Pausch, a college professor who was involved in teaching and developing virtual reality technology. This lecture took place about three months before he died due to tumors in his liver in July, 2008. Dr Pausch was 48 years old.

The lecture began with the identification of the three main topics of the day: My Childhood Dreams, Enabling the Dreams of Others, and Lessons Learned. He speaks of how the brick walls we run into are there for a reason - they let us prove how bad we really want something. Many people quit when they hit the wall, but the determined people who really want it will continue to work until they have broken through the wall or found a way over it. He feels the walls are part of a weeding out process. He goes on to talk about his childhood dreams and how has realized them for the most part. He didn't make it to the NFL, but he credits football with teaching him a lot about life, a sentiment shared by many successful coaches. In football, as in life, you must be strong in the fundamentals and you must work hard to achieve your goals. Lessons like this go along with his belief that most of what we learn we learn indirectly. He refers to this as a "head fake"

He continues by talking about having the opportunity to work with the people at Disney in helping develop the Aladdin virtual reality magic carpet ride. He mentions a mentor, Jon Snoddy, and talks about how this was a once in 5 careers opportunity. He got to work with real people on real issues and experienced how to put engineers and artists together on the same project.

Dr Pausch then spends some time talking about enabling the childhood dreams of others. He and his colleague, Don Marinella, were building virtual worlds. They were obviously doing a good job turning out people skilled in virtual reality because they had contracts with corporations to hire people who graduated from their program. One thing he said they did was focus on people and the students learning to work in groups. Everyone was evaluated by their peers, which is a good way to become more humble and cooperative. This also teaches people to become more self reflective. Going back to his head fake, they had kids make movies and games while they were actually learning how to write computer programs.

Dr Pausch then talks lessons learned: the role of parents, mentors and students can have a great effect on one's life and how things are approached. We should respect authority while questioning everything. On how to get people to help you: be truthful and sincere, apologize when you screw up, and focus on others, not yourself. Brick walls let us show our dedication -- Don't bail because the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap; Get feedback and LISTEN to it; show gratitude; and Don't complain, just work harder. At the end he gave some good advice: work hard; find the best in everyone no matter how long you have to wait; Be prepared-- "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity.

This was not really a video about education. This was more of a video on how to live and conduct your life. Sometimes if we carry our philosophy of life into the classroom, the students and the teacher alike will reap benefits. The nuggets of wisdom he gave apply to life and education : don't give up; put others first; be honest; people may learn more if they are having fun doing it. I wondered the entire time I was watching what this really had to do education or technology, then he told us at the very end. This lecture was not really for the audience, it was for his children.