Transcript The Last Lecture

By Randy Pausch
Group Members:
Chinmay Deshmukh
Varun Chawla
Atif Jamil
Rohan Agarwal
Pranjul Yadav
Rohit Pande
Born:
October 23, 1960
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Died:
July 25, 2008 (aged 47)
Chesapeake, Virginia
Pancreatic cancer
Citizenship:
United States
Fields: Computer science
Institutions:
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Virginia


Professor Pausch was invited to deliver a
speech as part of a “Last Lecture” series, in
which professors are asked to talk about a
topic that really matters to them, and to
impart their wisdom as if it were the last
lecture they would ever give.
Ironically, a few weeks after being invited to
deliver that lecture, Randy was told he had
only three to six months to live.


The Last Lecture is a memoir, a celebration of
life, and a testament to the power of
childhood dreams.
“These are the things I won’t get the chance
to tell them over the next twenty years I’m
trying to put myself in a bottle that will one
day wash up on the beach for them.”


He describes his cancer as “an engineering
problem.”
“How to spend my very limited time”
◦ “The obvious part is being with, and taking care
of, my family.”
◦ “The less obvious part is how to teach my
children what I would have taught them over the
next twenty years.”

“If I were a painter, I would have painted for
them. If I were a musician I would have
composed music. But I am a lecturer. So I
lectured.”


Randy almost didn’t go to Pittsburgh to
deliver his last lecture. His wife Jai had
wanted him to stay home with her and the
kids.
“An injured lion wants to know if he can still
roar. Its about dignity and self-esteem, which
isn’t quite the same as vanity.”



Randy’s dad always taught him that if there
is an elephant in the room, introduce it.
Randy decided to begin his talk in a specific
way – showing his CT scans, introducing
“the elephant in the room,” assuring
everyone he’s not in denial, and doing
push-ups.
“In the audience’s laugher and surprised
applause, it was almost as if I could hear
everyone collectively exhaling their anxeity.
It wasn’t just some dying man. It was just
me. I could begin.”






Being in Zero Gravity
Playing in the NFL (National Football
League)
Being a Disney Imagineer
Authoring an article in the World Book
Encyclopedia
Being Captain Kirk
Winning stuffed animals



The Vomit Comet, Johnson Space Center,
Houston
Student Project
I called an official at NASA to ask for his
fax number. “What are you going to fax
us?” he said. I explained: my resignation
as the faculty advisor and my application
as the journalist


Dream: play in the NFL
Coach Graham
practice with no football
fundamentals
training Randy very hard
“When you did something
wrong but nobody saying
anything to you anymore,
that means they gave up
to you”


“we have carefully reviewed your
application and presently we do not have
any positions available which require your
particular qualifications.”
Brick walls are there for a reason
Brick walls are there for a reason:
They let us prove how badly we
want things



Virtual Reality on Five Dollars a Day
Aladdin attraction where you would fly a
magic carpet
Some brick walls are made of flesh


A simple one, being an author in the World
Book Encyclopedia
When Randy was a kid, he had the World Book
Encyclopedia on the shelf. For the freshman
like him, this was just a paper…



And after he had become somewhat of an
authority on virtual reality, he was at the level
of people the World Book would bother.
They called him up and he wrote an article
You can find his article under V for Virtual
Reality

Finally all he has to say is that having been
selected to be an author in the World Book
Encyclopedia, he now believes that Wikipedia
is a perfectly fine source for information
because he knows what the quality control is
for real encyclopedias.


Captain Kirk was a role model for young
people
This was everything he wants to be, and what
he learned that carried him forward in
leadership later is that Captain Kirk wasn’t
the smartest guy on the ship

There is this skill set called leadership,
whether anyone likes the series or not ,
there’s no doubt that there was a lot to be
learned about how to lead people by
watching Captain Kirk guy in action.
So he got to achieve this dream


James T. Kirk, and his alter ego William
Shatner, wrote a book. It was with Chip Walter
who is a Pittsburgh- based author who is
quite good, and they wrote a book on
basically the science of Star Trek
And they went around to the top places
around the country and looked at various
things and they came here to study our
virtual reality setup
He said “ This may seem mundane to you, but
when you’re a little kid and you see the big
buff guys walking around the amusement
park and they’ve got all these big stuffed
animals, right? “
 And there he was,
winning as many
stuffed animals as
possible.


“We’ve talked about helping other people
enable their dreams. Somewhere along the
way there’s got to be some aspect of what
lets you get to achieve your dreams. First
one is the rule of parents, mentors and
students.”


“He also did very, very significant things to
help lots of people. There is a dormitory in
Thailand that my mom and dad underwrote.
And every year about 30 students get to go
to school who wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“These are the kind of things that I think
everybody ought to be doing. Helping
others.”

“He(his father) had fought in World War II in
the Battle of the Bulge, and when we were
going through his things, we found out he
had been awarded the Bronze Star for Valor.
My mom didn’t know it. In 50 years of
marriage it had just never come up.”

“I was complaining to my mother about how
hard this test was and how awful it was, and
she just leaned over and she patted me on
the arm and she said, we know how you feel
honey, and remember when your father was
your age he was fighting the Germans.”

“When I was in high school I decided to paint
my bedroom. I always wanted a submarine
and an elevator. And the great thing about
this is they let me do it.”




Teachers… Andy Van Dam
Mentors
Friends
Colleagues

“Don’t go do that(job). Go get a Ph.D.
Become a professor. And I said, why? And he
said, because you’re such a good salesman
that any company that gets you is going to
use you as a salesman. And you might as
well be selling something worthwhile like
education.”


You just have to decide if you’re a Tiger or
and Eeyore.
Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too
important. It’s what drives us.
Randy talked about the importance of adults in
a kid’s life.
How does it effects when the adults are too
rigid and when its vice-versa.
He also laid stress on the fact that adults
should encourage the children to dream big.




Randy believed that fashion is the way in
which people express themselves.
Randy also admired certain people in his life
because they never complained.
He believed that complaining is never a good
strategy in life and rather one should try to
work against the odds.
Randy believed a lot in group dynamics and
team work. Its all a give and take relationship.



Though not visible but there is a lot of
contribution from other people in an
individual’s success and therefore he
supported team work.
One should never hesitate to do something
new. Experience is always there, even when
one fails.
He also talked about apologies , thank you
notes , decision making and risk taking
abilities.

The autobiography was not meant to give
the audience a sneak peak into his up
bringing but was (mainly) to serve as a
memoir for his kids.

Not in any chronological order.

Written in a very comfortable childlike tone.

The book presents some choicest of his life
narratives which he would have loved his
children to read and learn from. Its not a
propaganda of a personal opinion – neither
something drastically revealing – but a very
titillating insight into his life adventures.