One of my procrastination tools whilst doing uni assignments is to follow links on sites I have accessed and I am often amazed at where I end up. Usually in all sort of unrelated areas and so it was whilst following one of these unrelated links I came across mention of Professor Randy Pausch and his “Last Lecture”.

A number of  universities in America conduct “Last Lecture Series,” in which top professors are asked to think deeply about what matters to them and to give hypothetical final talks. The Carnegie Mellon University had one of their top professors Randy Pausch who teaches in the Virtual Reality field to give a talk. In Randy Pausch’s case it is indeed his last lecture.

At 47 he is about to die from Pancreatic cancer. The theme of his lecture was about chasing his childhood dreams, things he has learnt along the way and lessons he would like to pass on to his students but most of all to his three children all under 5 years of age.

The lecture was recorded and is linked here (after it starts, if you ‘right click’ in the video you can choose full screen size) - Prof. Randy Pausch’s Last lecture - It runs for 2 hours but once I started watching it I was glued to the screen. I defy anyone to watch this and not have to reach for the tissues. Professor Pausch is a truly inspirational person and he is what I imagined all university professors would be like.

The Wall Street Journal called the lecture “the lecture of a lifetime” and those who have seen it have more than agreed just do a search on Randy Pausch and see for yourself.

During his talk Randy refers to running into obstacles along life’s journey especially when trying to achieve something. He refers to these obstacles as ‘brick walls’ and his attitude to these were,  “Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls aren’t there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want things.”. He followed on to say that if you did  want that thing bad enough you would find ways to get around that brick wall, that if you let the brick wall stop you then perhaps it wasn’t so important after all.

There are also included in this talk many examples of great teaching strategies. I particularly liked his reference to ‘head fakes’. You will have to watch it to see what I am refering to.

I can heartily recommend that you spend the time to watch this video and would be interested in your comments.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<