The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch

"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" (also referred to as "The Last Lecture") was a lecture given by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch on September 18, 2007, that received a large amount of media coverage, and was the basis for The Last Lecture, a New York Times best-selling book co-authored with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow. Pausch had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September of 2006. On September 19, 2006, Pausch underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy to remove the malignant tumor from his pancreas.  In August 2007, after doctors discovered that the cancer had recurred, Pausch was given a terminal diagnosis and was told to expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

                                                                     Randy Pausch

During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage. He also commented on the irony that the "Last Lecture" series had recently been renamed as "Journeys": "I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it." After Pausch finished his lecture, Steve Seabolt, on behalf of Electronic Arts, which is now collaborating with CMU in the development of Alice 3.0, pledged to honor Pausch by creating a memorial scholarship for women in computer science, in recognition of Pausch's support and mentoring of women in CS and engineering.

Professor Pausch's "Last Lecture" has received attention and recognition both from the American media and from news sources around the world.  The video of the speech became an Internet sensation, being viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery on social networking sites such as YouTube, Google video, MySpace, and Facebook.  Randy Pausch gave an abridged version of his speech on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October 2007.  On April 9, 2008, the ABC network aired an hour-long Diane Sawyer feature on Pausch entitled "The Last Lecture: A Love Story For Your Life".  Four days after his death from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008, ABC aired a tribute to Pausch, remembering his life and his famous lecture.

Previous Lectures

Pausch was known for some lectures in his previous jobs. In his previous career, Pausch was associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1997 and 1998, and also worked for The Walt Disney Company as an imagineer and for Electronic Arts.  At the University of Virginia, he was known for a lecture on the importance of making technology more friendly to users in which he demonstrated his point by presenting a VCR that was hard to program and then smashing it with a sledgehammer.  He was also known for his lecture on time management which he delivered in 1998 at the University of Virginia, and again in 2007 at the same venue.  "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was the first lecture of the nine part "Journeys" lecture series conducted by Carnegie Mellon, which also included speakers such as Raj Reddy, Jay Apt, and Jared Cohon, the university president.  The series of lectures was focused on university staff members discussing their professional journeys and the decisions and challenges they faced.

Book

The Disney-owned publisher Hyperion paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Pausch called The Last Lecture, co-authored by Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow.  The Last Lecture explained Pausch's speech, and the events that led up to it. According to Robert Miller, a publisher for Hyperion Books, the book would "flesh out his speech" and show others "how to deal with mortality" and how to live well while death is imminent.  The book was well-received, eventually earning the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list in the "Advice" category during the week of June 22, 2008.  The book remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 80 straight weeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Achieving_Your_Childhood_Dreams

 

A pdf file of the text of Pausch’s famous lecture is available at:  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/pauschlastlecturetranscript.pdf