The Last Lecture

In Chapter 25 Pausch tells the story of Tommy Burnett, a young man who wanted a job on Pausch’s research team. Burnett told Pausch about his childhood dream of working on the special effects for the next Star Wars movie. He was selected to be part of Pausch’s research team, worked really hard, and was a great person to work with. He accepted a job at George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic and assumed leadership roles on the Star Wars prequel movies (released in 1999, 2002, and 2005). Burnett admitted to Pausch’s students later on that Pausch helped make his dreams come true because he “rode him hard and had very high expectations” (118). Pausch also taught Burnett to go above and beyond the “smart” label; he needed to “help everyone else feel happy to be [there]” (118). Tommy sincerely thanked Pausch for teaching him the right things, not just technical skills. He now follows in Pausch’s footsteps in his desire to help others achieve their dreams.

To provide an opportunity for Pausch’s students to work toward their dreams, Carnegie Mellon opened up a course about building virtual worlds to all undergraduates. The course attracted a wide mix of students who worked in teams of four with instructions to construct a virtual world; their only limitations were no shooting violence or pornography.