Why was Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture titled, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”? How did Pausch manage to achieve his six childhood dreams?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Randy Pausch had six childhood dreams: Winning the biggest stuffed animals at the carnival, playing in the NFL, writing an entry in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk of Star Trek<\/em>, experiencing zero gravity, and becoming a designer or \u201cImagineer\u201d at Disney. In “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” he explained how, in various ways, he achieved them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep reading to learn about Pausch’s lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture was titled, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” Always an imaginative child, Pausch had six dreams: Winning the biggest stuffed animals at the carnival, playing in the NFL, writing an entry in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk of Star Trek<\/em>, experiencing zero gravity, and becoming a designer or \u201cImagineer\u201d at Disney. In various ways, he achieved them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pauche’s “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” speech began with his early childhood. When Pausch was young, he and his father took pride in winning giant stuffed animals at carnivals and amusement parks. Carrying around a giant stuffed animal won in a game of skill, such as shooting at cutouts of ducks or tossing rings at bottles, always drew admiring looks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There were only two requirements for becoming the envy of the carnival: a pocket full of change and a long reach, which helped during the ring toss (you could lean toward the target and throw). Pausch says he never cheated, although he amassed so many stuffed animals and posed in so many photos with them that others sometimes doubted he\u2019d won them all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He displayed some of them at his Last Lecture and invited audience members to take them afterward\u2014he didn\u2019t want his wife to have to deal with the clutter of oversize stuffed animals after he died. After the lecture, he learned that a female student with cancer had taken one of them, an elephant. Pausch found it appropriate because cancer was so often the proverbial elephant in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second dream in “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” was about the NFL. As a nine-year-old, Pausch wanted to be an NFL football player. While he didn\u2019t play professionally, he said he learned more from not<\/em> achieving that dream than from some other dreams he did achieve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Three important lessons he learned from playing in a youth league coached by a former Penn State linebacker were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Pausch thought he was learning football, he was learning how to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pausch loved the World Book Encyclopedia and pored over it as a child. Buying it, along with regular updates, was a great expense for his parents, but to him, it was a \u201cgift of knowledge.\u201d He always wondered about the experts who wrote the entries, particularly the obscure ones in Volume Z; his dream was to be invited to write an entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Years later, as a Carnegie Mellon professor, he was invited to write a section on virtual reality, which he did. Although Wikipedia and other online information sources have largely replaced traditional encyclopedias, Pausch enjoyed occasionally taking his kids to a library and showing them his entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a boy with an interest in science, Pausch loved the TV show Star Trek<\/em> and its hero, Captain Kirk, as well as the show\u2019s space-age gadgets, including pocket communications devices much like today\u2019s smartphones. Later in life, he applied leadership lessons he\u2019d learned from the Captain Kirk character\u2014for instance, remaining cool under pressure, setting the tone, having a vision, inspiring the troops, and delegating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pausch never played or became Captain Kirk, but he met his idol when actor William Shatner, the original Captain Kirk, visited his virtual reality lab at Carnegie Mellon. Shatner wanted to learn about the latest technology for a book he was co-authoring about Star Trek devices that foreshadowed real technological advances. For the visit, Pausch and his students built a virtual reality replica of the bridge of the starship Enterprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his cancer treatment, Pausch remembered a line from the Star Trek<\/em> movie The Wrath of Khan,<\/em> in which Kirk commented that he didn\u2019t believe in \u201cthe no-win scenario.\u201d Later, Shatner sent him a signed photo of Captain Kirk inscribed with that line when he learned of Pausch\u2019s diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Astronauts were popular heroes when Pausch was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. While many boys aspired to be astronauts, Pausch ruled that out because he\u2019d heard that NASA only accepted applicants with perfect eyesight (he wore glasses). However, what interested him even more was the thought of being weightless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, he learned that NASA had a rocket simulator nicknamed the \u201cvomit comet,\u201d in which visitors get to experience 20 seconds of something very similar to zero gravity. College students could apply to conduct experiments in the simulator. So Pausch\u2019s students at Carnegie Mellon submitted a virtual reality experiment and it was approved. The catch was that NASA didn\u2019t allow teachers to go onboard with their students. But Pausch didn\u2019t give up\u2014he studied the rules and learned that local journalists could accompany students, so he filled out a form identifying himself as a media representative. This was technically accurate because, after the visit, he shared video and a report with journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pausch made a memorable childhood trip to Disneyland in 1969 when he was eight. As his interest in science and engineering developed, he dreamed of becoming one of The Imagineers and designing Disney rides and attractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Years later, after receiving a sabbatical for virtual reality research, he talked Disney into accepting him for six months to work on a secret Aladdin attraction involving a magic carpet ride. He had some trouble getting a Carnegie Mellon dean to approve such an unconventional study request, but he persisted and his experience with The Imagineers was a highlight of his life. He wore his Disney Imagineer\u2019s shirt when he delivered his Last Lecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pausch never lost touch with his childhood dreams and, in various ways, he achieved them all before he passed away of pancreatic cancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He titled his Last Lecture \u201cReally Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.\u201d In it, he advised listeners to carry around a Crayon as a reminder of childhood aspirations and to never give up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why was Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture titled, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”? How did Pausch manage to achieve his six childhood dreams? Randy Pausch had six childhood dreams: Winning the biggest stuffed animals at the carnival, playing in the NFL, writing an entry in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk of Star Trek, experiencing zero gravity, and becoming a designer or \u201cImagineer\u201d at Disney. In “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” he explained how, in various ways, he achieved them all. Keep reading to learn about Pausch’s lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,33],"tags":[223],"class_list":["post-28125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motivation","category-people","tag-the-last-lecture","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nReally Achieving Your Childhood Dreams<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Stuffed Animals<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The NFL<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The World Book<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Captain Kirk<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Zero Gravity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Imagineers<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Really Achieving His Childhood Dreams<\/h3>\n\n\n\n