Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

   In my academic career, I have never been more moved by an assignment. The last time I viewed a video featuring Dr. Randy Pausch, I was extremely entertained, more more importantly motivated and enlightened. This time, however, I found myself more moved by a lecture than I ever have before.
   With Fall Break, I found it a good opportunity to visit home and take advantage of mom's cooking and take care of some pressing laundry matters. As I opened this assignment, my mother asked me if what I was viewing was Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. While I was not surprised by her knowledge of him (as she has worked in academia for over thirty years), I was surprised that she was so passionate about how moving his last lectures are.
    While I may be forced to admit that I have a short attention span and sometimes find hour plus lectures to be somewhat painful to sit through, this one was entirely different. I found myself taking notes, not for assignment purposes, but for personal gain. I felt strongly about the last video I watched featuring Dr. Pausch, but The Last Lecture was on another level.
    As Dave Ramsey is to financial advice, Dr. Pausch was/is to education. As a future educator, I feel as though if one were to apply his common sense principles to educating their students, then there is a good possibility that they too would make an impact comparable to the one that he is still making post posthumously. As the fifteen million two hundred thirty seven thousand nine hundredth something person to have viewed this lecture, I would imagine that a very good percentage of those people were moved to be better by this video. I know I was.
    The video touched on so much more than just being a solid educator. It focused on being a solid human being. His focus on doing the right thing for the right reasons and focusing on others as fundamentals is something that we have all heard before. But to hear it from a man who has accepted an illness that would inevitably kill him sounds a different tune. While he was entertaining and considerate to his audience, I sensed a tone in his lecture that signified that he desperately wanted to leave behind words that meant something to more than just his students. I think it is safe to say that his mission was accomplished.  
    On a personal level, I have never been more pumped about becoming an educator. In a mundane academic setting, it is easy for students to lose focus. I want to establish an academic arena comparable to that of Dr. Pausch's. While I will never contribute ground breaking research on virtual reality nor gain tenure at one of our country's premier universities, I am confident that I can instill a percentage of the motivation to learn into my students what Dr. Randy Pausch did in me in the last one hour and sixteen minutes.