Logan Frey

4th Summary Response: The Last Lecture

Professor Andrew Brown

UWRT 1104-19

April 12th, 2017

4th Summary Response: The Last Lecture

Throughout the last dense section of the Last Lecture, written by Randy Pausch, I began to

appreciate the new sequence of chapters that Pausch began constructing. Throughout the remaining

sections of the book, Pausch began to drive home the idea of giving pieces of advice through different

sections of the book such as Tell the Truth, Never Give Up, and All You Have to Do Is Ask.

Although Pausch had been doing this throughout the entire book, I felt as if the last home stretch of the

book is where the most important pieces of advice were located due to the fact that his book was coming

to an end and he was driving home his main pieces of life advice. Personally, I think that Pausch used this

book to express a way to go about living a life filled with happiness and joy, and how he went about

living a life that provided him with everything he couldve ever wanted, and with these pieces of advice,

Pausch is allowing individuals to view the different aspects of his life and how he went about facing

different circumstances of his life. I believe that each piece of advice has been experienced by Pausch,

which is the reason he can talk so passionately about each section of the book. For example, I believe the

most important section of the book is Never Give Up and in this section Randy Pausch explains how

when he first applied to Carnegie Mellon that he had been rejected, but Andy van Dam, Pauschs Dutch

uncle and mentor at Brown University picked up the phone and called Carnegie Mellons head of

computer science department. After a short uncomfortable meeting with Nico Habermann, the head of

Carnegie Mellons computer science department, Randy Pausch was accepted into Carnegie Mellon and

never told this story until his life was coming to an end.
 Reflecting on the reading, I have been able to gain insight into Pauschs life and realize that

through numerous life experiences, Pausch was able to experience failure, success, pain, and happiness,

and with these several life experiences, Pausch has the insight and knowledge to speak about how to go

about living a happy life. In my opinion, Randy Pausch is the most suitable candidate to preach a topic

such as this one, and in terms of talking about a life filled with brick walls and obstacles along the way,

Pausch has been able to experience the most adversity one can face and still come out at the other end

smiling. Therefore, I believe the way Pausch goes about introducing different sections/chapters of his

book by introducing a new piece of life advice is the most appropriate and interesting way to go about

sequencing a book, but I also think it is a component of the book that makes it so enjoyable and exciting

to read. Like Pausch stated, Its interesting, the secrets you decide to reveal at the end of your life, and

if it werent for Pauschs book and last lecture, his children and colleagues/students at Carnegie Mellon

would have never been informed about Pauschs struggles and how much he had gone through to get to

where he was in life. Pausch overcame an abundance of brick walls only to be hit with the biggest

brick wall of all, but he faced this life ending brick wall with optimism and passed away leaving

behind a memento that will live on forever through his children, his colleagues and readers as well.