The Last Lecture

buy it

get this book get it. I'm serious it'll change your life!

Randy Pausch : an American professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania delivered his "Last Lecture" speech titled [Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams] on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon.

He conceived the lecture after he learned that his previously known pancreatic cancer was terminal.

The talk was later released as a book with the same title, which became a New York Times best-seller.

In this book he summed up his 47 years of life story in 206 pages.

He wrote what he wanted his kids to know about their old man, he wrote what he expected for them, what he wanted his life partner Jai to know.

He talked about their preparation of resuming life after his death, how he made sure he provided beautiful memory for each kid on his own of their father.

My favorite part of the book was when he wrote his life lessons. what his father taught him, his mom, his soccer coach. what he learned from each person he met in certain points of his life.
I marked a lot of passages from this one I hardly kept page unmarked!
and there was particularly one page titled "Don't Obsess Over What People Think" I thought it was dedicated to me or something IT WAS ALL I NEEDED TO HEAR! (page 141)

Favorite Passage:

"I know you're smart. But everyone here is smart. Smart isn't enough. The kind of people I want on my research team are those who will help everyone else feel happy to be there."

The fact that such person completed his studies to turn out as the great computer science professor he is gave me huge push to hold on with my major ( i study MIS and for long time wasn't convinced it was the right thing for me ).

If you wanted to read more of him I checked on-line and found his Updated Journal in which he kept a follow-up record of his case until the day he dies.

Professor Randy Pausch died at July 25th, 2008, (that's 3 months after launching the book)