Readers Respond to Randy Pausch Column

Earlier, I blogged about the WSJ column on Randy Pausch’s last speech before a cheering crowd at Carnegie Mellon. Dr. Pausch was one of the founding fathers of Alice, an NSF-supported programming language that is popular with instructional video game enthusiasts.

Jeff Zaslow wrote the original column in The Wall Street Journal that generated the lion’s share of online interest. In it, he gave a synopsis of the speech; I provided a link for readers to watch the speech over at CMU in an update to my original post. In due course, the blogosphere and traditional media were abuzz with the speech and what it meant to varied individuals.

This week, Zaslow follows up his earlier column with another entry in which he describes the widespread reader reaction to his original story. Folks everywhere, Zaslow reports, have gotten a charge out of watching Dr. Pausch’s lecture. Dr. Pausch has asked Carnegie Mellon officials to keep the video of the lecture in the public domain so that it can remain widely accessible.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to watch the speech, now is the time. This is an inspiring final manifesto from academia’s finest.

References:
Zaslow, J. (2007, September 27). The professor’s manifesto: What it meant to readers. The Wall Street Journal, D2.

This entry was posted on September 27, 2007 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Business Lit, Carnegie Mellon, Game Discussion, Game Studies, Media, Serious Games, Video Game Research, WSJ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Readers Respond to Randy Pausch Column”

  1. mindwellness Says:
    October 29, 2007 at 9:18 am

    Some lessons from Randy Pausch’s last lecture that especially moved me:

    1. Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.
    2. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
    3. Never lose the child-like wonder.
    4. If we do something which is pioneering, we will get arrows in the back. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people will have a whole lot of fun.
    5. Be good at something; it makes you valuable.
    6. If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you.

    Check out the tribute quiz on the lecture at http://www.mystudiyo.com : you can add your own questions at the end of the quiz.
    http://www.mystudiyo.com/activity.php?act=558

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