The Last Lecture

Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", at Carnegie Mellon on September 18, 2007.[2] The talk was modeled on a 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?"

A month before giving the lecture, Pausch had received a prognosis that the pancreatic cancer, with which he had been diagnosed a year earlier, was terminal. Upon his introduction, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it", someone in the audience shouted back, "You did!" The lecture was upbeat and humorous, shrugging off the pity often given to those diagnosed with terminal illness. At one point, to prove his vitality, Pausch dropped and did push-ups on stage.

Pausch begins by setting up the topics he discusses. The first of the three subjects, his childhood dreams, is introduced by relating the premise of his dreams, saying, "inspiration and permission to dream are huge". The second topic in "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" is titled "Enabling the Dreams of Others". In this section, Pausch discusses his creation of the course "Building Virtual Worlds" that involved student development of virtual realities. For this course, Pausch created a program called "Alice- The Infinitely Scalable Dream Factory" because he wanted millions of people to chase their dreams. The software allows kids to make movies and games, giving them the opportunity to learn something difficult while still having fun. He believed that "the best way to teach somebody something is to have them think that they're learning something else." The third topic, called "Lessons Learned", introduces and reiterates a few new lessons that Pausch learned and accumulated over his lifetime. Arguably his most meaningful point comes at the end of his lecture, when he states: "It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.”

The Last Lecture fleshes out Pausch's lecture and discusses what he wanted his children to know after pancreatic cancer had taken his life. It includes stories from his childhood, lessons he wanted his children to learn, and things he wanted his children to know about him. He repeatedly stresses that one should strive to have fun in everything, and to live life to its fullest because one never knows when it might be taken.

In the book, Pausch remarkes that people told him he looked like he was in perfect health, even though he was dying of cancer. He discusses finding a happy medium between denial and being overwhelmed. He states that he would rather die from cancer than be hit by a bus, because if he were hit by a bus, he would not have had the time he spent with his family or the opportunity to prepare them for his death.

The 2012 edition of the book features a foreword written by his widow Jai, reflecting on the time since her husband's death.

The Last Lecture achieved commercial success. It became a New York Times bestseller in 2008, and remained on the list for 112 weeks into the summer of 2011.[3] It has been translated into 48 languages and has sold more than 5 million copies in the United States alone. There was speculation that the book would be turned into a movie, but the idea was rejected by Pausch. He commented "there's a reason to do the book, but if it's telling the story of the lecture in the medium of film, we already have that", referencing the video recording of the lecture.[4]

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• Official site from Hyperion
• Randy Pausch delivers "The Last Lecture" at Carnegie Mellon University, Sept 18, 2007 (YouTube)
• Carnegie Mellon University Randy Pausch's Web Site