The Last Lecture: Randy Pausch

Professor Randy Pausch put a new spin on Carnegie Mellon's "Last Lecture Series," which posited, "if you were about to die, what is the most important thing you would want to tell your students?" by giving an inspirational talk about his life and ideas, in the last months of his battle with pancreatic cancer. "Damn, I finally nailed the venue!" he joked.

"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was the title of this lecture. Pausch was a pioneer in the field of entertainment technology, and co-created a program called Alice, which teaches computer programming to kids, with fun.

"I don't know how to not have fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun."

The full video of this talk is 1 hour 20 minutes, is quite bittersweet and has valuable recurring themes, such as: “Brick walls are there for a reason: to let us know how badly we want things.” and "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

An excellent 4 minute film about Pausch's "Last Lecture" project and personal philosophy is here.

His decision to make the most of his dying-experience gives an amazing inspiration. "You have to decide if you're a Tigger, or an Eeyore. I think it's pretty clear where I come down in this debate."