2008-04-18

Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture - "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"

On September 18, 2007, Professor Randy Pausch, a virtual reality pioneer and human-computer interaction researcher, of Carnegie Mellon University gave his last lecture at the university before a packed audience in McConomy Auditorium. This was noteworthy because Pausch had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, given three-to-six months of good health, and this was to be his very last lecture, ever. Family, friends, and colleagues came from all over the world to share that moment in the life of Randy Pausch.

Pausch spoke about lessons he has learned throughout his life, goals he set, brick walls he has broken through, and advice he has for others to achieve their own dreams. The lecture was well received and Pausch went about the business of living out the time he had left with his family. Then something happened. A video recording of the lecture had been made available on the Internet and viewings now number over six million. On September 20th, 2008, Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column about Pausch. A few months later, Pausch was approached by publishers, asking that he turn his experiences and his "Last Lecture" into a book. Pausch contacted Zaslow and they co-authored "The Last Lecture" for Hyperion Press, a publishing division of Disney. The book was released on April 8th, 2008. The next day, Diane Sawyer's interview with Professor Pausch aired on ABC (owned by Disney) and has generated a nationwide out pouring of concern and empathy for his inspirational story.

To find out more about Randy Pausch, including his current condition, go to his home page.



Randy Pausch Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams



Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management


Randy Pausch's other projects:

The Legacy of Randy Pausch

Alice is an free, innovative 3D programming environment provided by Carnegie Mellon University that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web.

The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science.