Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Wow!! What a truly inspiring lecture! Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University gave the last lecture before a packed auditorium of his colleagues and students but unlike those that preceded him this was truly his last lecture. He made clear the things that he was not going to address in his speech, which included cancer, his family, and religion. However, he did go on to tell about his childhood dreams, which he managed to accomplish in his own rite, but not without some setbacks. In response to these setbacks he repeated several times throughout this lecture that "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how bad we want things." I think that he just shows that if you want something bad enough and you work hard enough to get it, nothing is out of reach. What a great thing to teach our children!!

Another thing that he went on to address in his speech was enabling the dreams of others. He believed that was more rewarding than fulfilling his own dreams. He believed in giving his students freedom to explore their ideas as well as not setting the bar. He also gave his students feedback and encouraged them to not make excuses. He wanted them to learn from the advice they were given.

Mr. Pausch also believed that you should have fun while learning. He had a term "head fake" which is basically when you gain other skills through doing a task without even realizing it. He also took his classes on field-trips. This allowed them to see things that they were learning being utilized in the field. I truly believe that he enjoyed what he did and loved sharing his enthusiasm with his students. It is refreshing to see an instructor that loved what he did!

His entire speech was filled with life lessons that he had learned from others and through experience. It was very inspiring and for me very emotional. Here is a man with the odds against him and he still manages to inspire others with a wonderful sense of humor. In the end he asked the audience if they had figured out the "head fake", which he responded, "this talk is not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life!" In the end he also revealed that the speech was really for his children, just another "head fake"!

What a beautiful thing for him to leave for his kids!!!!!