Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

When a friend recently told me about someone he'd seen on the news, a professor Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University who was dying from pancreatic cancer, I wondered if it was the same Randy Pausch who taught my usability engineering class ten years ago at the University of Virginia. I was sorry to learn that it was in fact him.

Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006. Despite surgery and chemotherapy, in August 2007 he learned that the cancer had spread to his liver and spleen, and doctors told him that he had 3-6 months of good health left.

Randy (as he insisted on being called by his students) makes it very clear that he's not in denial, but at the same time he doesn't do self-pity. In fact, his attitude is nothing short of amazing. He puts it this way: "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you."

On September 18th, Randy gave his last lecture titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." After explaining his medical condition for anyone who didn't know, he proceeded to say that his talk was not going to be about cancer, but about how you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. For starters, here are his childhood dreams:

• Being in zero gravity
• Playing in the NFL
• Authoring an article in the World Book encyclopedia
• Being Captain Kirk
• Winning stuffed animals
• Being a Disney Imagineer

I won't give away too much for those who still want to see the lecture, but only one of those dreams didn't come true in one way or another for him. Randy says he probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than he got from any of the ones that he did accomplish. And after all, this talk isn't just about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life.

In all honesty, Randy's last lecture really wasn't that special for me. Not because it wasn't great (it was), but because his students are used to hearing that kind of stuff from him. That's just the kind of guy he is. The academic content of his class was interesting, but what I liked best about it was all the life advice that came on the side. In Randy's own words, "most of what we learn, we learn indirectly, or by 'head fake.'" I couldn't agree more. Thank you Randy, for all the lessons learned.