The Last Lecture

In these first few chapters Pausch sets the stage for the very real and difficult task ahead of him: He is preparing for his last lecture as a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The talk is his chance to impart some final wisdom to the university’s student body; it’s also an opportunity to leave behind a legacy for his three children.

While the idea of a last lecture is somewhat exciting, it is also daunting. Pausch has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer; his doctors estimate he only has a few months left to life. His wife Jai argues that “any time [he’ll] spend working on this lecture is lost time, because it’s time away from the kids and from [her]” (4-5). However, the lecture gives a sense of purpose to Pausch, who regards it as a wonderful opportunity to engage in deep, meaningful reflection about what matters most to him, “to cement how people will remember [him], and to do whatever good [he] can on the way out” (7). His desire to give a last lecture isn’t about vanity but dignity and self-esteem, which become his main motivation.

Pausch realizes that the unique story of his life is that he accomplished nearly all his childhood dreams. He’s overwhelmed by the task of consolidating his life into a reasonable number of PowerPoint slides. He is doing all this while suffering from the aftereffects of chemotherapy: nausea, cramps, and diarrhea.

The section ends with the opening moments of Pausch’s lecture. Given that his talk is about achieving childhood dreams, he wears his Disney Imagineers t-shirt to the presentation. He opens his speech by addressing the “elephant in the room”—his terminal diagnosis—complete with the visuals of a CT scan that show his tumors. However, he does some pushups to prove to the crowd that he isn’t “just some dying man. It was just [him]. [He] could begin” (18).