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The Last Lecture Randy Pausch Reflection Essay example

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Reflection of Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture”

Pennsylvania State University Berks Campus

The Last Lecture began as a good-bye speech, made by Randy Pausch, a 47 year old professor diagnosed with terminal cancer. His speech at Carnegie Melon University became an Internet phenomenon. It has also been published as a book. I really thoroughly enjoyed his Last Lecture speech. He had a lot of good talking points and brought up some new perspectives, or ways of looking at life situations that got me thinking. He talked a lot about his dreams when he was a child and was very humorous and inspirational throughout his speech. He also had a lot of quotes that I really enjoyed and they are what I want to focus on. “When you screw …show more content…

A statement that stuck out to me was that “people are more important than things.” This is an idea that seems to have been innate for me. Since I was young, I always cared a lot about the people in my life, and that has translated to how I am now. I value friendships so much. I believe that yes, you have your family and they should always be there and support you, but having friends creates such more stable foundation in the relationships that you have. You can make a lot of money and buy whatever you want, but money does not equate happiness. I appreciate the people who are in my life and all the experiences we have shared together, which I will continue to reminisce about and keep forever. Money or things could not give me all those experiences. Sometimes I feel like people are so driven by their need for a sense of achievement and wealth/power that they push people away and give up any chance of building their friendships and enjoying the fruits of life that you can only get through your interaction with people. These people just end up alone, and that is something I do not want to do. Randy Pausch was very successful at being able to always put people before things. “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you want” and “brick walls are there to show how much people want something,” we two of my most favorite quotes that came out of his speech. The more I reflected on these

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