Sunday, April 6, 2008

The lecture of a lifetime

Randy Pausch (born October 23, 1960) is a 47 year-old Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In September 2006, he was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

Pausch delivered his "Last Public Lecture," titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" at CMU on September 18, 2007. This talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures, where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk," i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"

The complete transcript is available here (pdf, 248 Kb)

The video of the lecture can be viewed here. It's quite brilliant.

2 comments:

Ranjit kumar said...

Hi Shankar,

This is a good thought, i have always wondered whether i would be more hard working and go that extra mile to achieve what i wanted to be in life, if i know that i am about to die.

Regards,
Ranjit kumar

Unknown said...

Hello,

just stumbled upon this piece on your blog and its a gem !! btw your other posts are also ver insightful and backed by good analysis .. keep it up !

Cheers
Ashish