Reflection Of The Last Lecture By Randy Pausch

It was in the summer before my sophomore year when I read the book “The Last Lecture” by CMU professor Randy Pausch. The book was based on his famous “last lecture” that he gave while being terminally ill with few months to live. In that lecture, instead of talking about his tragedy, he spoke about the positivity of life, continuous learning, unconstrained imaginations, honesty and integrity, overcoming obstacles and choices that one can make to lead a good life. Two of his key experiences has stood out for me. The first is related to how his students achieved best results when they were unshackled to pursue limitless exploration. The second was his advice on facing obstacles or “brick walls” that stops someone from achieving a desired objective.

Pausch shares his experience of how students at the entertainment technology center at CMU when allowed to design their own perfect virtual world incorporating technology, arts and humanities with unlimited imaginations,
In Junior year, while designing the website www.vibanote.com for upcoming music artists to get a broader exposure, I experienced the synergy between technology and music. Knowing music, it was relatively easy for me to learn computer languages like Java and Python and use the musical concepts of regularity, patterns, and structures in conceiving the software program for my website. I first coded the basic constructs, then developed extensibility patterns and assembled them to deliver desired functionalities. The designed website can dynamically extend to accommodate new requirements. I can only imagine, how a brain wired to understand music’s spatial and visual characteristics can be applied in designing solutions around AI, machine learning, natural language processing, unstructured data processing, and a host of other cognitive capabilities. I aspire to pursue life by permeating the boundaries between the two disciplines and learn from one