Blog Assignment 7

Randy Pausch Last Lecture:Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I read Randy Pausch's book "The Last Lecture" a few years ago and loved it. I had not watched his actual lecture until now. I think he is an amazing person who despite what he was facing made the best of his circumstances. This lecture opens up with some information about Dr. Pausch as he presents the "elephant in the room". The "elephant" is the fact that he is terminally ill and has been given the diagnosis of 3-6 months of good health left. He then goes on to talk about his childhood dreams and how he went about achieving them. He wanted to enable the childhood dreams of others and through this he expresses some of his teaching strategies. Dr. Pausch began a course that he felt would help him to help others in achieving their childhood dreams. The course was titled Building Virtual Worlds and it was compiled of 50 students from all departments within the university. During the course students were randomly put into groups in which they would complete a project in two weeks and there where 5 projects throughout the entire semester. This strategy had the students working with new people every two weeks which would teach them how to work with others.
After the students turned in their first project he was astounded with how will they did so he called his mentor Andy van Dam and asked him what to do. His mentor told him to go into class and tell the students that what they did was good but they he know they could do better, and that is exactly what he did. Dr. Pausch said that not setting the bar was the best thing he could have done for the students because they just kept doing better and producing projects that were "out of this world". I think that through not setting the bar he allowed students to use their imaginations and be creative. They were only limited by their imaginations and not by someone who told them what they had to do. Dr. Pausch taught like this because he wanted to enable the dreams of others and that cannot be done if you set a limit on students imaginations.
Another one of the strategies that I notices was how he had the students peer review one another on how they were to work with. He would take that information and put it into a bar graph that he would give to the students showing how was thought easiest to work with and who was hardest. I think this is a fantastic way to give a "wake-up call" to those who didn't work well with others. Hopefully it would make them take a step back and reevaluate how they worked and why they were deemed difficult to work with.

This course developed into a 2 year program called the Entertainment Technology Center which once completed students would have a masters of Entertainment Technology. He took one course and made it into a program with the help of many others that would allow students a chance to achieve their dreams. Through this lecture Dr. Pausch exemplified humility, not giving up,having enthusiasm for what you do, and gratitude.One of my favorite things he said was "Brick walls are there for a reason:they let us prove how badly we want things" he also said, "they were to keep those out who didn't want it as badly." Another thing he says that I really like was, "When you do the right thing. good stuff has a way of happening." In the end of the lecture he says some important points and one of them was to have a feed back loop such as a mentor or the bar graph peer review sheet he used. I was lucky to know someone who had the same kind of energy and drive as Dr. Pausch even though she was face with dismal circumstances. She helped me to see my dreams and she put me on the path to achieving them. I feel that it is important to surround yourself with those who believe in you. When you do, just like Dr. Pausch's first "head fake" you can lead your life the right way and be on the path to achieving your dreams.