If you were given the opportunity to give a lecture to students as if it were your last, what would you say?
This year, Binghamton University history professor Stephen Ortiz rose to the challenge by giving a lecture, entitled “The Accidental Historian” to a packed Old Union Hall on Tuesday.
The “Last Lecture” is a tradition inspired by a Carnegie Mellon University professor of computer science named Randy Pausch. Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 45 and was told he only had a few months of good health left. He delivered a final speech entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” which went viral on the Internet, led to a bestselling book and sparked a movement where professors are invited to give a speech as if it were to be their “last lecture.”
Ortiz began his comments with some thoughts on what it means to give a last lecture. His speech was interspersed with jokes and a lighthearted tone.
“If this was truly a last lecture I wouldn’t be in a suit,” Ortiz said. “I would be in shorts as if I’m at the beach.”
Ortiz’s lecture conceptually was centered on the ideas of focus, uncertainty and planning. He walked the over 100 students in attendance through various parts of his life and career where he had to make challenging decisions.
During his tenure in college, he said that he often felt dispassionate about his studies.
“I got there and I was unfocused, unprepared and unlike all the other graduate students,” Ortiz said.
He joked about the unlikelihood of becoming a professor considering his past academic career, in which he wasn’t always the most diligent student.
“I can say that I almost failed out of college”, Ortiz said. “The professors and I just disagreed whether the required work for the class was actually required.”
His revelation to become a history professor was a gradual process that began with the help of an advisor. On the advice of this advisor he left graduate school and began an unconventional path the academia.
After he left school he drove trucks in the city, bartended, worked at a five-star hotel and travelled the country.
“I was a glorified vagabond and ne’er-do-well,” Ortiz said.
The lessons he learned while working these jobs in the past inform how he approaches his job as a historian. He stressed that in order to understand people living in the past, you have to understand people living in the same room as you.
“I think that over time, the impact of human actions can be the most important thing,” Ortiz said.
In his observations of the typical undergraduate at BU, he said he has noticed that most students have meticulously planned their lives and career moves out step by step. While noting that he understands why students do this, he still warns of the inherent dangers in it.
“I worry that with over planning, we close ourselves off to life’s more serendipitous encounters,” Ortiz said. “And we are creating these incredible cauldrons of stress.”¶
Adam Wilkes, one of the organizers of the event and a sophomore double-majoring in economics and philosophy, politics and law, thought Ortiz’s speech played very well with the audience.
“Ortiz reminded us that sometimes we can’t plan for the most meaningful experiences of our lives,” Wilkes wrote in an email.
Ortiz ended with reaffirming words, encouraging his listeners to embrace the unknown and to not shy away from new experiences.
“To see uncertainty as failure is to see the world on fixed paths.” Ortiz said. “Maybe if we embrace uncertainty, we can avoid a bleak future.”