Randy Pausch's Last Lecture Essay

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, “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 achieve before anything else. This made me think really hard about what my dreams are. It’s kind of hard to think about what my biggest dreams are, but some of the dreams I have are playing professional baseball and also having a career instead of a job when I grow up. So, for myself Pausch really just made me think about what my dreams are. Another lesson I learned from Pausch is how he understands the need to have other people in your life. I noticed throughout his lecture he kept the people laughing. He obviously is not a comedian but he kept the people laughing by just telling the truth about his past experience. Then, he went on to say a couple times to find the best in everybody. If it seems hard to find the best in someone, then just keep waiting. It may take years to find the best in someone but you need to find the good in people rather than what they are doing wrong. The goal of Pausch’s presentation was to make people understand the “head fakes” when learning something. The title of his lecture was “Pausch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” but the real message he was bringing across was how to lead your life. He was teaching us something without us even knowing it and that is what “head fake”