Ah, just one more sleep! With much anticipation, UBC’s sixth annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) final competition is happening tomorrow (Thursday, March 10th – 4:30-6:00 PM at the Graduate Student Centre Ballroom).
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is an academic competition for current graduate students. It gives them an opportunity to hone their presentation and communication skills while elucidating the breadth and significance of their research project to a non-specialist audience.
With UBC among one of the first Universities in North America to host a 3MT competition, it is exciting to know there now are well over 75 universities participating in 3MT competitions worldwide – Canada, Europe, Asia Pacific, New Zealand, Australia, Middle East, Africa, United States, and the United Kingdom.
On April 29th, UBC’s first place 3MT finisher will advance to a regional competition at UBC Okanagan. Top finishers from that competition will then proceed onto the national honours round in a virtual-setting competition sponsored by the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS).
On that note, here’s a message from the 2015 National Champion – Elizabeth Watt1, courtesy of CAGS:
“Canada’s 3MT is just one example of excellent professional development opportunities offered to today’s graduate students. The idea that researchers need to present their ideas and results to the public is gaining traction. The speeches that I had the opportunity to hear at every level of the competition covered a vast range of topics. What united all of them was the passion of the presenter. Before I listened to the speeches, I may not have ever explored migratory patterns of birds, coronary embolisms, or the effect of climate change. But I came out of the presentations feeling excited about many different fields of research, and contemplating how many graduate degrees is too many if I were to pursue all of the topics! My experience with Canada’s 3 Minute Thesis has allowed me to advocate for my research topic with many people within and outside my field. It has far better prepared me for those brief elevator discussions where one tries to describe their research between the third and sixth floors! And perhaps one of the most tangible results I’ve seen is that I think my family, including my 94-year-old grandmother, might finally understand what I do Whether you are participating at the local, regional or national level, I wish you the best of luck and remember to have fun!”
Browse full-text UBC theses and dissertations in your particular field of research via cIRcle at: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses
Browse other UBC digital collections’ research via Open Collections at: https://open.library.ubc.ca/
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1 Elizabeth Watt quote, “A Message from 2015 National Champion” – https://cags.ca/prizes/a-message-from-2015-national-champion-elizabeth-watt/