Really Achieving
Your Childhood
Dreams
Randy Pausch
Carnegie Mellon University
Sept 18, 2007
The elephant in the room…
I’m not in denial…
And I’m in good health now
What we’re not talking about
Cancer
 Things more important than childhood
dreams: my wife and kids
 Spirituality & Religion

 My
deathbed conversion
Today’s Talk
My childhood dreams
 Enabling the dreams of others
 Lessons learned: how you can achieve
your dreams or enable the dreams of
others

My Childhood Dreams
My Childhood Dreams



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Being in zero gravity
Playing in the NFL
Authoring an article in the World
Book encyclopedia
Being Captain Kirk
Winning stuffed animals
Being a Disney Imagineer
Being in zero gravity
The “vomit comet”
Brick walls are there for a
reason: they let us prove how
badly we want things
Football



Dream: play in the NFL
Coach Graham
 practice with no football
 fundamentals
 him riding me all practice
Coach Setliff


Power of enthusiasm
To this day, I am most
comfortable on a football field
I Never Made it to the NFL
But football got me where I am today
 Fundamentals & Hard Work
 “Experience is what you get when you
didn’t get what you wanted”
 Most of what we learn, we
learn indirectly (or by “head fake”)

Being an author in the
World Book Encyclopedia
Meeting
Being like Captain Kirk
Dream

Being Captain Kirk
It’s cool to meet
your boyhood idol.
Winning Stuffed Animals
I can hear the cynics…
Being an Imagineer
Brick walls are there for a
reason: they let us prove how
badly we want things
1991: VR on Five Dollars a Day
CHI ‘91, and Tom
Furness asks a question…
Jon Snoddy

I had to brief the Secretary
of Defense

Disney’s Aladdin project

Lunch with Jon…


“ But you're in the business of telling stuff, and we're in the business of keeping secrets”
He taught me: “wait, and people will surprise you.”
Our Villain;
but all’s
well that
ends well
Brick walls are there for a
reason: they let us prove how
badly we want things
Aladdin
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Working on Aladdin VR
a
once in five careers opportunity
 Forever changed me
real people, real HCI issues
 how to put engineers & artists
together

Really being an Imagineer…
and I said “no.”
Virtual
Jungle
Cruise
Enabling the Childhood
Dreams of Others
… or, “Boy, am I glad I became a professor!”
Building Virtual Worlds

50 students from art, design, drama, and CS

Randomly chosen teams, change per project

Two weeks to design, implement, and test

Five projects during the semester
The First Year

Listed in Five Departments (I love CMU!)

Content: Anything you want


No shooting violence
No pornography

They blew me away w/first assignment

I called Andy van Dam

The first show


In McConomy for its A/V
President Cohon’s reaction
Campus-wide Exhibition
BVW was a pioneering course

And as they say…
The Dream Fulfillment Factory
Don Marinelli (Drama)
Randy Pausch (CS)
Entertainment Technology
Center (ETC)

Artists + Technologists working
in small teams to make things

2 year professional degree: Masters
of Entertainment Technology

Two kindred spirits: try things a new way; we’re both a
little uncomfortable in academia

CMU is the only place I know where this could happen.
Right Brain / Left Brain
Don & I shared an office for six years
Co-Director Credit for the ETC’s Success
The ETC is to “masters degrees”
as Cirque Du Soleil is to “circus”
ETC Curriculum: First Draft
First Year Spring
First Year Fall
Project Course
Project Course
Optional Internship
Second Year Fall
Project Course
Second Year Spring
Project Course
ETC Curriculum
First Year Spring
First Year Fall
The Visual Story
Improvisational Acting
Intro to Entertainment Technology
Building Virtual Worlds
ETC Interdisciplinary Project Course II
Elective
Optional Internship
Second Year Fall
ETC Interdisciplinary Project Course III
Elective
Second Year Spring
ETC Interdisciplinary Project Course IV
Elective
Key to the ETC’s Success: Freedom

No deans to report to

License to “Break the mold”

Project-based curriculum

Intense, fun student experience

Field trips!
Edutainment
Developed with FDNY
 Networked simulation
to train 1st responders
to chemical spills and
terrorist attacks

Companies guaranteed hiring our students
Don has taken the ETC global:
Australia, Korea, Singapore
Keys to the ETC’s Success: Focus on
People and Learning to work in Groups
Alice
The Infinitely
Scalable Dream
Factory
And I guess this makes me the mad hatter…
Alice

Novel way to teach
Computer Programming

Kids make movies and
games; the “head fake” is
that they are learning to
program

Over 1 million downloads, 8
textbooks, 10% of US
colleges using right now
Alice is my Professional Legacy

Helping millions of kids have fun
while learning something hard

v3.0 will release in 2008, in Java,
with characters from the bestselling PC game in history: The
Sims

Can’t mention everyone, but…



Dennis Cosgrove is building it
Wanda Dann, Steve Cooper, Don
Slater are developing the pedagogy
Caitlin Kelleher is going to hit the
home run with middle schoolers
Lessons Learned
The Roles of Parents,
Mentors, and Students
My Dad, age 80
My Mom

The theory qualifier

My son, the doctor…
Other people who help us
 Teachers
 Mentors
 Friends
 Colleagues
Andy van Dam
 Mythical
creature
 Dutch
uncle-d me my
sophomore year
 Made
me go to
graduate school
My “Bosses”: Respect authority while questioning it
We learn from our students
 The
best “head
fake” of all time –
Caitlin’s idea about
storytelling in Alice
More Lessons Learned
President Cohon’s Advice

Tell them about having FUN

Like a fish giving a talk about the
importance of water
Decide if you’re Tigger or Eeyore
Never Lose the Child-like Wonder
Help others
MK Haley:
Limit case of my
large family theory
“It’s kind of fun to do
the impossible”
“Professor boy”
Denny Proffitt:
Forgotten more than I’ll ever know
Jessica Hodgins: The best gift ever
Loyalty is a two-way street
Never Give Up

Brown University – didn’t get in.

Carnegie Mellon for Graduate School –
didn’t get in.
 Meeting
with Nico
How to Get People to Help You

You can’t get there alone, and I believe in
Karma
Tell the truth
 Be earnest
 Apologize when you screw up
 Focus on others, not yourself (an example…)

Brick walls let us show our
dedication
Don’t bail; the best
gold is at the bottom of
barrels of crap
Get a feedback loop; and listen to it!
Show Gratitude
How can you do this?
ETC admissions…
Don’t complain; just work harder.
Important Advice
Be good at something: it makes you
valuable
 Work hard … “what’s your secret?”
 Find the best in everybody; no matter how
you have to wait for them to show it
 Be prepared: “luck” is where preparation
meets opportunity

Today’s Talk
My childhood dreams
 Enabling the dreams of others
 Lessons learned: how you can achieve
your dreams or enable the dreams of
others

How to achieve your dreams

Have you figured out the head fake?
How to achieve your dreams
Have you figured out the head fake?
How to lead your life
Have you figured out the second head fake?
Have you figured out the second head fake?
This talk wasn’t for you guys.
It was for Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.
Really Achieving
Your Childhood
Dreams
Randy Pausch
Carnegie Mellon University
Sept 18, 2007