Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design taught his students to never fear failure because it is "better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre". He in fact created the First Penguin award for the biggest failure in his class each year. It was thus named because every year penguins are the first into the water, even if it's too cold.
Though he won several teaching accolades, he is best known for a talk, now named "The Last Lecture" that he gave after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, subtitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Hyperion published a book based on the lecture, c0-written by Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow in 2008. It has now been translated into 46 languages and has more than 4.5 million copies in print in the U.S. alone.
Pausch died on July 28, 2008, but his passion for teaching and the power of trying lives on.
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