Randy Pausch

Randy


I really enjoyed Randy Pausch lecture, and it was very inspiring. The topic he spoke about was called the last lecture. Randy explained in his speech if he had only one more lecture to speak before he died what it would be about. The irony of this speech is that Randy was diagnosed with cancer, and in fact this would be his last speech.he shaped his speech about his upcoming death to be something celebrated, not feared, and most importantly positive. Death, all of a sudden became something completely different from what the average person identifies it with, and became something each person could identify and relate to. I was drawn to him from the start because he was a man dying with just months to live, yet he was far from appearing sad or discouraged. He used his up-beat lively personality to automatically catch my attention.

Randy Pausch’s supporting material is what made his speech amazing. Randy spoke on life, and how to achieve your dreams. There have been thousands of speeches about this topic, but what set apart randy’s speech from all the others were his examples about each topic he spoke about. Through his examples and explanations he brought laughter, emotional connection, and simple wholesome truths that every person could relate to. For example, Randy used the quote “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want” He was explaining that just because you do not reach your goal, like him not becoming a professional football player, does not mean you have not gained anything. He drove it home to always keep dreaming.

Humility was another point he touched on that had a great example behind it. He explained that his father fought in WWII, and one day his mother was going through some old things and found out that when fighting randy’s father had earned the Bronze Star for Valor. In 50 years of marriage “ it had simply never come up” Through a 30 second brief story Randy Pausch was able to define the true definition of humility in a touching and personable way.

Other moving explanations he had included painting his bedroom walls, and pouring the soda onto the seats of his brand new car when he was trying to portray the importance of people over things.Randy did a good job closing the speech by reinforcing that you can reach your dreams by living a good life. If you live a good life, your dreams will come to you. In conclusion, I think all of the main points Randy mentioned in his speech were strong yet simple, and each one of them should be used in classrooms today. I learned very much from this lecture, and really enjoyed it.