“Most of us would slip into a deep depression, but Randy used the experience as teaching material. In his last year, Pausch became a passionate spokesperson for the need for pancreatic cancer research. As an expert in user interface design, he also consulted with Google and Xerox PARC. He founded the Alice software project - a free, educational programming language - and did sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts. Pausch taught computer science, human-computer interaction and design for two decades at Carnegie Mellon University, where he co-founded its Entertainment Technology Center. The next year, he stepped in front of an audience of hundreds of students and colleagues to deliver a last lecture called 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.' Video of the lecture became a phenomenon on the Internet, captivating millions with its upbeat delivery and at-times darkly funny tone, and it was later adapted into a bestselling book and numerous television appearances that reached millions more.

It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.In 2006, professor Randy Pausch was diagnosed with a terminal case of pancreatic cancer. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because 'time is all you have.and you may find one day that you have less than you think'). But the lecture he gave-'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams'-wasn't about dying. Written with reporter Jeffrey Zaslow, the best-selling book is an expanded version of a Last Lecture Pausch gave in 2007, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is a distillation of his life lessons and experiences. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? 'We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.' -Randy PauschĪ lot of professors give talks titled 'The Last Lecture.' Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them.