Blog Post # 7

When I first read the description of the assignment I thought "Crap, this is way too long". During the video "Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", I sat there with my notepad watching this I found myself glued to what Dr. Pausch had to say. I had set my notepad down and listened to what he was saying instead of jotting down notes so I could get started with this particular assignment. He had three points to what he had to talk about in his lecture: having dreams, helping others realize their own dreams, and lessons learned. He elaborated on each of these in detail and you really got to learn a lot about his life. He talked about head fakes and asked at the end of the lecture if anyone had figured them out. The first head fake Dr. Pausch said was "It's not how to achieve your dreams but how to lead your life". If you look back on what he was saying on his dreams growing up and realizing them as an adult he was really giving an outline of some of the events in his life and how he got there. No matter what profession someone has, if you go through life always striving toward what you want things will work out for you. The second head fake Pausch said was "This talk was not for you, it was for my kids". The end of the video you could sense how emotional it was becoming. When Dr. Pausch said what the second head fake was it really made sense. If you look back it was like a biography of his own life and his accomplishments for them to refer back to and be able to see what he did and who he was. They will always have that and have something to remember him by.

Having your own dreams is an important aspect no matter what stage in your life because it gives us a reason to live and things to strive for. The one point that he made that I think was the most important to his first point of the lecture was when he talked about fundamentals. If you can't perform the basic components of something then how can you achieve the more complex parts. A lesson that he learned in high school that he carried with him his entire life was in football from one of his assistant coaches. He said "When you're screwing up and nobody is saying anything to you anymore, that means that they gave up on you". If you are doing something incorrectly you won't be able to see that unless someone is there to help you correct it. That's getting the fundamentals down and making them second nature so that higher level tasks can be concentrated on without distraction.

Helping others achieve their goals and dreams in life is a great idea and concept that gives people a warm and fuzzy feeling similar to what people experience during Christmas or similar type of holiday seasons. Thinking about it and actually making it happen are two very different things. The program ETC that Dr. Pausch spear headed helped students learn without  actually realizing that they were learning. Pausch explained "Make them think they are learning something else...they are learning to program but they think they are making movies and video games."I think that's the best way to learn. It's like birth because everyone wants the baby just without the labor pains. So if you can help large amounts of people get an education painlessly then they are going to be that much more pumped about who and where they are and will in turn pay it forward to the next group of people.

Reflection is a word that comes to mind when Dr. Pausch brought up his third part of his lecture of lessons learned. What have you accomplished at the end of the day and what can you take away from it? One of Dr. Pausch's examples of looking at something and making it better through experience. He talked about a lesson he learned from one of his students Dr. Keller that introduced computer software to middle school students. She looked at the program "Alice" and wanted to take it from a collegiate level and incorporate it into a more fundamental level. Dr. Pausch said how learned from a lot of his boss's as well and gave a lot of praise to them for their advice. You can get a life lesson from many forms of people. The thing about it is that you can keep looking back and be like "wow, thats what they meant"and the next day get another reaction similar to that from the same source about something else. It almost seems mysterious because you can get a lesson learned at any given time. They come from the people in your life whether it be a teacher, parent, child, or friend which is are the best sources a person can learn from because they are familiar to you and allows you to be more open minded.