Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was delivered on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium. Over 450 Carnegie Mellon students, staff members, and friends of Pausch attended the lecture, leaving only standing room as this was more than the auditorium could hold. Pausch later commented about this in an interview, saying "A couple of hundred people in a room, looking and listening and laughing and applauding – hopefully at the appropriate times – that gives a lot of validation to my kids that a lot of people believe in this, and a lot of people who knew me believe that I did my best to try to live this way." The first introduction of the speech as well as the series of lectures was given by Indira Nair, the Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon. Nair first explained the university's aforementioned lecture series called "Journeys", in which eight more professors from Carnegie Mellon would share their insights on their professional and personal experiences over the years.
Katie Couric
Couric is the author of two children's books and a non-fiction collection of essays. Her children's books "The Brand New Kid" (2000) and "The Blue Ribbon Day" (2004) were illustrated by Marjorie Priceman and published by Doubleday. "The Brand New Kid" topped the "New York Times" best seller list for children's picture books, and was adapted into a 2006 musical by Melanie Marnich and Michael Friedman. Couric's third book, "The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives", was published by Random House in 2011. The book is a collection of essays compiled over the past year by Couric; contributors include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Queen Rania of Jordan, and former "Today Show" colleague Matt Lauer. Couric said that a 2010 convocation keynote address she gave inspired her to write the book. To this end, all profits of the book will be donated to Scholarship America.