Randy Pauschs Last Lecture Essay - 1011 Words

Pausch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams You would think a man dying of cancer would not be so happy and willing to spend the last few months of his life giving a lecture. But, Randy Pausch, who has 10 tumors in his liver, does not want people to pity him for having cancer. Rather, he wants to teach people how to follow their childhood dreams. Looking at the seven elements of communication we see how he is so effective in his last lecture. The lecture has affected me personally by letting me learn from some of Pausch’s past experiences. Pausch says, â€Å"The inspiration, and the permission to dream is huge.† This quote made me learn that people need to have the ability to think of what kind of dreams they want to inspire to†¦show more content†¦The lecture was about how he achieved all of his childhood dreams in some way. He never played professional football or grew up to be Captain Kirk, but he did play football in high school and was a ble to meet the man who played the role of Captain Kirk. His goal was not to teach us ways to achieve those dreams but it the goal was rather to teach us how to lead our lives by pursuing those dreams. The place where Pausch was giving his lecture was in a lecture hall at Carnegie Mellon. He was giving the speech to many people that he knew but also many others that he did not know. He was in front of a crowd of many people and in a perfect context for his last lecture. You also feel as if he is actually just speaking to you throughout the whole lecture. The message of the lecture was to teach other people what he had gone through so that they can learn from his past experiences. He gives us many lessons we can use in our lives. One specific example Pausch says is, â€Å"When you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore that means they gave up.† The example he gave was when his football coach was riding him the entire practice. Whenever he did the slightest thing wrong his coach would jump on him and say you’re doing that wrong, you owe me pushups. I have had this happen to me in live when I used to play baseball and looking back on it now I see why my coaches did that. It was because they cared. When you areShow MoreRelatedRhetorical Analysis of Randy Pauschs Last Lecture Essay1662 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Ã¢â‚¬Å"Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students?† That is how Professor Randy Pausch, from Carnegie Mellon, began his last lecture, a speech entitled â€Å"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams† while in fact he was dying of Pancreatic Cancer. He knew he only had months left to live and put together this last lecture to read to his students. His lecture focuses in on points such as the importance of: making sincere apologies, not whiningRead MoreThe s Virtual Reality Research1686 Words   |  7 PagesRandy Pausch was bor n on the 23rd of October in 1960 in Baltimore Maryland. He was fortunate to have a great set of parents and a happy childhood.4 He attended grade school in Columbia, Maryland, and then received a Bachelor’s Degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1998 Pausch also received a Ph.D. computer science degree from Carnegie University. He made a career out of teaching as an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia, then