The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch
A 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. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull over 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?
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. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. 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"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
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 is a book that will be shared for generations to come.
Randy Pausch was a co-founder of Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at the university. He was a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow and a Presidential Young Investigator of the National Science Foundation. He took sabbaticals from Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA), as well as advising Google on user interface design. Dr. Pausch earned his bachelor's degree in computer science and his doctorate in computer science from Brown University. Carnegie Mellon University awarded him a bachelor's degree in computer science.
He was the director of the Alice software project (www.alice.org), and he had traveled in zero gravity. In Virginia, he lived with his wife, Jai, and their three small children. The Wall Street Journal essay by Jeff Zaslow sparked initial interest in Randy Pausch's talk. He's also the co-author of The Highest Responsibility by Captain Chesley Sullenberger and the author of The Girls from Ames, both blockbusters.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781401323257 |
| ISBN 10 | 1401323251 |
| Title | The Last Lecture |
| Author | Randy Pausch |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Hyperion |
| Year published | 2008-04-08 |
| Number of pages | 224 |
| Prizes | Winner of Books for a Better Life (Inspirational Memoir) 2008, Commended for Grand Canyon Reader Award (Teen) 2010, Short-listed for Virginia Readers Choice Award (High School) 2010 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |