Students should pursue their passions and “go crazy” driving for their goals, said Research Assistant Professor of Psychology Michael Grant at a lecture on Tuesday.
About 100 Bostonians and students gathered at BU’s School of Education to listen to Grant speak during “The Last Lecture with Dr. Michael Grant,” hosted by the BU Undergraduate Psychology Association.
The lecture was modeled after Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch’s infamous “Last Lecture,” where he delivered an inspirational speech about achieving one’s dreams before he died from cancer.
College of Arts and Sciences junior Elle Markman, co-public relations chair of the UPA, said they chose Grant to deliver the lecture through brain-storming with students and faculty who had heard positive remarks about his character.
“The premise of the lecture is to ask‘If you only had one lecture to give, what kinds of life advice would you give people?’ So we don’t actually know what he’s going to talk about,” said CAS junior Drew Corse, treasurer of the UPA.
Grant said that important lessons he learned drove his life goals, and how college-aged confusion and new objectives lead his life to take an “unconventional” shift.
“You might feel uneasy about where you’re going, you might wonder where you’ll be in four years, and you might be a little concerned that you’re not going to get it right,” Grant said.
“I’m here to tell you that’s not a horrible thing. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, ‘There are no second acts in American lives.’ Mark out that ‘no.’ There are second acts in our lives,” he said.
Grant spoke about his personal experiences with his “second act.”
After being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of 10, Grant spent most of his teenage years receiving treatment, only once he was healthy to find out that his older brother had died in a car accident.
After high school, Grant enrolled at the University of Central Florida as a business major and became president of his fraternity pledge class.
However, Grant said that he received horrible grades during his freshman year and eventually left to focus on his studies and work at a health club as a fitness instructor.
After moving from one company to another, Grant realized that he was not happy with the course his life had taken and decided to pursue his passion as a professor of psychology instead.
“Ultimately, do what you love. The money? That’s going to take care of itself. Making goals, driving for goals because you want to make the buck. If that’s what you want to do, go crazy,” Grant said.
Grant said he is content with the course his life has taken and what he has now, even if he is not world-famous, he is simply happy with the life he has created for himself.
BU students saw the lecture as an enlightening view into Grant’s life.
“I thought it was really cool, I didn’t really know what it was before I came here, my friend just invited me,” said College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Ally Hughes.
“I loved it. I mean, Dr. Grant is my advisor as well so I always appreciate his insight,” said CAS sophomore Tino Bratbo. “He has great story and he always knows how to formulate it well.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
