Randy Pausch The Last Lecture Book

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, Jeff Zaslow, Jeffrey Zaslow, Jeff Zaslow

Synopsis "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." —Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Biography Randy Pausch is a Professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University. From 1988-1997, he taught at the University of Virginia. He is an award-winning teacher and researcher, and has worked with Adobe, Google, Electronic Arts (EA), and Walt Disney Imagineering, and pioneered the Alice project. He lives in Virginia with his wife and three children.

Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, attended the last lecture, and wrote the story that helped fuel worldwide interest in it. He lives in suburban Detroit with his wife, Sherry, and daughters Jordan, Alex and Eden

Professional accomplishments

Pausch received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He has been a co-founder, along with Don Marinelli, of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and he started the Building Virtual Worlds course at CMU and taught it for ten years. He has been a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. Pausch was a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1988 until 1997. He has done sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA), and consulted with Google on user interface design. Pausch is the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles, and the founder of the Alice software project.

Pausch received two awards from ACM in 2007 for his achievements in computing education. These are the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education.[1] He was also inducted as a Fellow of the ACM in 2007.

The Pittsburgh City Council declared November 19, 2007 to be "Dr. Randy Pausch Day."

Cancer

Pausch's last lecture Pausch has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health. He soon moved his family back down to Virginia.

On March 13, 2008, Pausch advocated for greater federal funding for pancreatic cancer before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. In the week prior to this, he had been hospitalized in order to have needle aspiration of pleural effusion in his right lung.

The "Last Lecture"

Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture," titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," at CMU on September 18, 2007. This talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk," i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"

Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it," some in the audience shouted back, "You did!"

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.

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.

CMU president Jared Cohon spoke emotionally of Pausch's humanity and called his contributions to the university and to education "remarkable and stunning." He then announced that CMU will celebrate Pausch's impact on the world by building and naming after Pausch a raised pedestrian bridge to connect CMU's new Computer Science building and the Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way Pausch linked those two disciplines.

Finally, Brown University professor Andries van Dam followed Pausch's last lecture with a tearful and impassioned speech praising him for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model.

Media coverage

Randy Pausch and his wife Jai meeting with Sting at "The Police" concert at UVa on November 6, 2007Pausch was named "Person of the Week" on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson on September 21. His "Last Lecture" has attracted wide attention from the international media, became an Internet hit, and was viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery. On October 22, 2007, Pausch appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where he discussed his situation and recapped his "Last Lecture" for millions of TV viewers.

On October 6, 2007, Pausch joined the Pittsburgh Steelers for the day during their regular practice, after the organization learned that one of his childhood dreams mentioned in his "Last Lecture" was to play in the NFL.

The Disney-owned publisher Hyperion has 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 Jeff Zaslow.

A devoted Star Trek fan, Pausch was invited by film director J.J. Abrams to film a role in the latest Star Trek movie. Abrams heard of Pausch's condition and sent a personal e-mail inviting Pausch to the set. Pausch happily accepted and traveled to Los Angeles, California to shoot his scene. In addition to appearing in the film, he also has a line of dialogue.

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."

Other lectures and appearances

Pausch gave an updated version of his "Time Management" lecture on November 27, 2007 at the University of Virginia, to an audience of over 850 people.

In March of 2008 Pausch appeared in a public service announcement video and testified before Congress in support of cancer research.