The first assignment, I gave it to them, they came back in two weeks and they just blew me away. I mean the work
was so beyond, literally, my imagination, because I had
copied the process from Imagineering's VR lab, but I had
no idea what they could or couldn't do with it as
undergraduates, and their tools were weaker, and they
came back on the first assignment, and they did
something that was so spectacular that I literally didn't,
ten years as a professor and I had no idea what to do
next. So I called up my mentor, and I called up Andy Van
Dam. And I said, Andy, I just gave a two-week
assignment, and they came back and did stuff that if I
had given them a whole semester I would have given
them all As. Sensei, what do I do? [laughter] And Andy
thought for a minute and he said, you go back into class
tomorrow and you look them in the eye and you say,
"Guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do
better." [laughter) And that was exactly the right advice.
What is the purpose of Pausch telling this story?
O He wants to show what a good teacher he was.
O He wants the audience to hire his former students
as computer programmers.
O He wants to show that in order to encourage
people, one should not limit what they can do.
O He wants to encourage other professors to give
difficult assignments